Many Shades of Grey?

Anything is justifiable with the words "look at it this way..." but that doesn't make it justified. I am a firm believer in moral objectivism--that the activities of human beings are either right or wrong, but that we are all just incapable of grasping the true difference. We instead invent this concept of "the many shades of grey between black and white" to justify our actions (no matter what they are) in the event that our conscience is unable to weigh the pros and cons of our activities or those of others. This is how we can get away with judging the deeds of others with more impunity than our own actions, based almost entirely on our perceptions of other people rather than the facts of their circumstance. This "many shades of gray" theory gives us the benefit of the doubt no matter what, and allows us to search out justifications for our actions no matter what the consequences of those actions were. The reason I don't subscribe to this "moral subjectivism" is because the worst among us--child molesters even--are able to use it to find moral justification for actions that our society convicts them for. Now ask yourself, are you no better than a child molester?

It is a fact that there are circumstances in life where morality is ambiguous to us, where the pros and cons of doing something force us to choose the "lesser of two evils," or force us to choose randomly because the consequences seem either morally neutral or are too large or small to conceive, or have their effects at a great distance from us. But let's be honest, when people insist that "there are many shades of grey," what they are really saying is that there is only grey. If even minute immoralities can be shirked off as possibly containing ambiguities, and therefore be rendered "neutral," then the same could logically be said about large immoralities (which is why we have justifications for murder, war, and even child abuse), so what is really meant is that all actions are ambiguous, if only because it is the logical extension, unless one wants to start deliniating what is ambiguous and what isn't (which is just to be acquiescing to moral objectivism anyways).

So instead, the subjectivist then jumps to label an action as "more acceptable" simply due to the particulars of who is doing the action and what they were doing it for, or some other immaterial criterion we can establish as a judgment point in our own minds that is separate from its ambiguous consequences. That way, that which is more divorced from our actions directly, that which is the work of the majority, that which is not done by intent (or by accident), that which is performed by people of authority (political or professional), and that which we do (as opposed to the like actions of others), all becomes "more acceptable," simply because it tends to be the case in nature, regardless of the very real consequences of those actions. People and intentions become more important than actions and consequences.

It is as if we are to accept, and eat, the spoiled fruit off the ground just because the picker had "intended" to pick it when ripe and just forgot. "Oh well, we say, the picker is a professional and he didn't mean to let our food spoil. It wasn't his fault, therefore, his food is safe to eat." It may sound like a straw-man criticism, but consider what professionals are allowed to get away with doing unintentionally in real life, particularly towards minors, under the premise of "they didn't do it intentionally." Good intentions aren't good enough. That which is rotten, is rotten, regardless of whether it was intended to be ripe when served. Likewise, psychiatrists who intend to treat teen depression with a prescription for a series of suicide pills, have produced rotten fruit, regardless of their intentions to treat and heal. We can't seperate or ignore the negative consequences of actions simply because we trust the person who did the action, and likewise, can't overemphasize wrongdoing simply because we don't trust them. Either way, we are letting perspectives govern consequences, and in the case above, putting psychiatrists before clients, or perpetrators before their victims.

Almost all actions carry with them positive consequences and negative consequences, so on the surface it may appear that morality is subjective, and that all judgment about right and wrong "depends on how you look at it." The problem with this view is that it inevitably forces you, the subjectivist, to concede to a new set of moral laws which may not be so tolerant to your intuitions--the laws of nature--where the strong cut down the weak, the majority cuts down the minority, the powerful cut down the impoverished, the old cut down the young, and the young cut down the old--where the affluent justify the ruin of those who suffer at a distance, and where each of us escapes all judgment from every "ambiguous" deed and non-deed simply because the court in our own minds is always adept at finding justification and absolution from the feeling of guilt, regardless of consequence. This is the new moral law that you inevitably subscribe to when you accept the "many shades of grey" illustration, because this is what we see happen in the world when culture accepts the subjective nature of morality as if it was unsubstantiated truth (by its own subjective principles). We are forced to base our lives around the law, which allows for us to justify our immorality so long as doing such is legal, and so long as there is a benefit (no matter how minute) stemming from our actions (no matter how destructive). So long as all actions are considered "grey," there is no right and wrong, there is just "grey," for everything and everyone.

It is understandable that in circumstances of ambivalence or ambiguity we're forced to make a choice and accept whatever consequences or benefits come from the action. What is not understandable though is when we have to justify to ourselves that the action we were forced to take ultimately was the correct one, or at least, the better choice, after the fact. It seems merely self-serving, a quest to save the ego from itself so as not to subject it to the fact that the "lesser of two evils" we just chose was still in fact "evil." If it was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation beforehand, and you choose "do," you're still as damned after the fact as you were before, let's not forget. Just because you chose doesn't mean you haven't produced damnation on yourself. It's better to accept the consequences of your actions, accept that your choice had repercussions, than to carry on as if you just averted catastrophe simply because you made a choice. Who can we pass judgment on? No one, because no one is qualified. All we can do is do the best we can and accept the consequences that come inevitably from "our best guess."

If an action has more negatives than positives, it is not "a shade of grey," it is morally wrong, and sometimes, things that are morally wrong are necessary to do, but their necessity doesn't make them right. If an action has more positives than negatives, it is merely "less wrong," or morally acceptable at best. Only actions that produce no negative consequences whatsoever can be considered unquestionably morally right (if they even exist), and only actions that produce no positive consequences are unquestionably morally wrong. What those morally right and wrong actions are, though, is difficult for anyone to say because the human mind is governed by instinct, emotion, reason, culture, legality, and a whole host of other characteristics that influence our perspective. Without these forces pulling us in one direction or another, we'd be able to possess the purely logical expression that morality is, that thing that we are all just stumbling around trying to get a handle on and align our intuitions to. Mankind invents its own moral laws to try to simulate the perfect "form" of morality strewn from our intuition (as evolved in us via instinct) and expressed as culture, but all man-made systems fail to express it completely, in one simple formula, the fact of what is "black" and what is "white." So we have "grey" only because we don't want to face the fact that we often don't know the difference.

We are all children.