What We Owe To Each Other -July 18

What We Owe To Each Other

By Paul Kellam

University Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, July 18, 1999

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I have stolen my title, "What We Owe To Each Other," from a book published last year.

What the author owes me is what I paid for the book — $35 plus tax. He has a great title, but if it were not for the dust jacket copy and several favorable reviews I would be hard pressed to tell you what he is trying to say.

For the record, the author’s name is T.M. Scanlon, and he is the Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University.

I bought the book because the title and what I had read about it suggested that Scanlon had made a pretty fair case for a notion I’ve had in my head for a good many years. I’m a sucker when it comes to giving money to people who seem to agree with me. My notion, and his, too. I think, is that there’s a perfectly natural and rational basis for human ethics and morality.

Scanlon calls this contractualism. That abstraction does not turn me on. The descriptive expression that we each owe one another something does turn me on.

And what really turns me on is the conclusion one has to come to once you begin to think of human behavior in contractualist terms. The contracts we have with each other — this foundation of ethics and morality — was not handed down by a supernatural divinity as we’ve been told.

It arises quite naturally out of evolutionary experience. It comes into being in a way very similar to the way our species has come into biological being — through the incredibly complex and patient process of evolution by natural selection.

Perhaps moral evolution is exactly the same as biological evolution. Perhaps moral evolution and biological evolution are different aspects of the same process — a process that has no plan but proceeds down paths that enable us to adapt to changing conditions and thereby enhance our chances for survival.

As we all know, the genetic roots of our species — the biological roots — go back to the first primitive life forms on this planet. I am not quite ready to say our moral roots go back to slime and algae, or whatever the most primitive life form was. But genetically we share much of our hard wiring with other life forms.

Among all creatures on earth, however, we humans are the ones with the greatest capacity to remember experiences we’ve had, share our thoughts about them with others, and learn from our shared experiences. Primitive organisms are pretty much all hard wired — all nature, you might say. We have a lot of hard wiring, too, but along with that a big nurture element. We have the capacity to override some of the hard wiring when it’s to our advantage to do so.

It may well be that the genetic hard wiring of our species gets changed over time by the collective experience of passing generations.

The philosophy of contractualism is an effort to provide a rational structure for understanding how the intricate web of interlocking human contracts defines the rules for fair play and provides incentives to play by the rules when the rules are fair. And, on the other side of the coin, incentives to violate the rules when they are not fair and change them so as to effect a more level playing field.

Although I don’t think Francis Fukuyama uses either the term "contractualism" or the phrase "what we owe to each other" in his just-published book, The Great Disruption, he deals with Scanlon’s topic more clearly than Scanlon when he says: "Moral values and social rules are not simply arbitrary constraints on individual choice but the precondition for any kind of cooperative enterprise."

"Individuals amplify their own power and abilities by following cooperative rules that constrain their freedom of choice, because these [cooperative rules] also allow them to communicate with others and to coordinate their actions. Social virtues, such as honesty, reciprocity, and the keeping of commitments are not worthwhile just as ethical values; they also have a tangible [economic] value and help the groups that practice them to achieve shared ends."

Contractualism is not a new philosophical idea and it’s not as simple as it may seem at first thought. Developing broad understanding of its ramifications will be hard work but I think it’s worth doing and extremely important for the future of human life. Why?

If there is a natural and rational basis for human ethics and morality — and I think there is — once that’s laid out in a way that can be understood, then no one has to listen to one more word of self-righteous babble from those who claim rules for human behavior are edicts handed down by a divine supernatural authority.

Once we understand where human ethics and morality came from we can get down to some objective and rational hard work toward improving the moral code. The incentive to do that will be the tangible value gains realized.

Millions of people of many conflicting religious faiths and ethnic inheritance have been persuaded that their particular set of ancient rules must be followed and enforced. I am persuaded that in the name of moral purity the self-appointed enforcers and administrators are leading us down a path of escalating and mutually destructive strife.

If there is a natural and rational basis for human ethics and morality — and I think there is — if the case for it can be made clear . . . perhaps the gathering doom can be dispelled.

Alas, neither Professor Scanlon nor his reviewers come to grips with the impact the broad understanding of contractualism could have, at least so far as I can tell. Perhaps they think they can’t deal with the implications and also be true to their understanding of the contract of moral behavior for academic philosophers.

Perhaps, like Copernicus, and Newton, and Darwin, they want to avoid the vilification sure to come from those with strong religious convictions.

So far as I know, the religious right has not yet caught on to the implications of contractualism, but when they do they won’t like it. There are no moral absolutes. Morality and ethics, like Einstein’s physical universe, is relativistic and it’s up to us to figure it out and put those relativities to good use.

Judaism, out of which Christianity derives, is heavily contractualist. The biblical term is "covenant." "I will be your God and you will be my people," God is said to have said in his contract with Abraham. And then later, in a rather one-sided conversation with Moses, God — disguised as a burning bush — sets down some specific terms of that contract, the six commandments.

I know that you have heard there are ten. And as I’m sure you all know, just last month the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution containing an amendment that would allow and encourage the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. It is said to be certain that the amendment will not survive a House-Senate Conference committee. Many on both sides of the aisle agree that it would be clearly unconstitutional. The amendment got tacked on because few wanted to be perceived as voting against moral order.

The first four of the Ten Commandments are what make the amendment unconstitutional because they assert the authority of God, and identify him as the contract maker and enforcer.

There is undeniable evidence that all the remaining six commandments, or something essentially the same in general meaning, were already in force throughout most of the world’s cultures — and not just civilized cultures — before the Ten Commandments came to human attention: Respect your ancestors. Don’t kill. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t covet.

These are six good rules, universal rules. They arose independently in separated cultures out of the evolutionary experience of learning how to survive. They are good rules because through long, arduous and life-on-the-line testing they were found to improve chances for survival..

With regard to the biblical Ten Commandments, the male Hebrews of the time of Moses invented a God and made a contract with their invention. And they made it appear as if this God had come up with the rules that, in fact, had been evolved by their own and other tribal ancestors through human experience.

One might argue that the Hebrews of the days of Moses thought they had an exclusive contract with God and had no way of knowing that the six commandments were pretty universal. But we know that now, and to hang the six good commandments on schoolroom walls under the first four would violate at least two of the six good commandments and maybe four of them.

Setting them forth as divine edicts . . .Would be a lie . . .Would be disrespect for the real authors, our human ancestors . . .Would be theft . . .Would be to covet the honor due those who did the hard work.

The core premise of contractualism — the notion that we each owe one another something . . .that the concept of mutual debt is at the root of what we call ethics and morality — is only the tip of the iceberg.

The tough part is the "what" part of it — determining what we owe, to whom we owe it, who owes what to us, when and how we are supposed to pay up, and what do we do about it if the other party doesn’t live up to the contract.

Indeed, How do we judge whether an action is right or wrong? Do we take someone else’s word for it, or do we have to figure it out for ourselves?

And, if we judge an action to be wrong, what reason does that give us not to do it? Some actions that I — and most people I know — judge to be wrong, are really quite pleasant to experience. Well, so I’ve been told.

And to turn that around, if we judge an action to be right, what reason does that give us to do it?

Contractualism attempts to get at these difficult and inter-related questions objectively — to put some rational structure on what we do intuitively. Civilization — living among people who are mostly strangers — makes ethics and morality incredibly more complicated.

And we haven’t had much experience with civilization — only about one-tenth of one percent of all human experience. There are many examples of tribal life among other animals, and with it certain unwritten rules for acceptable behavior. I suppose you could even call it moral behavior, but that is not civilization. Civilization R us, so to speak, an exclusive invention of the species, Homo Sapiens.

In hunter-gatherer days, which are 99.9 percent of human experience, there was only one punishment for violation of the moral code of the tribe, and that was shunning. Dissension endangered survival of the tribe. One could be shunned for almost any perceived violation. I don’t mean thrown out, just ignored. A person simply ceased to exist in the minds of the tribal culture. It could be grossly unfair, perhaps simply the result of a misunderstanding with the wrong person and there was usually no way to appeal.

If the shunning stuck the culprit had no choice but to try to go it alone in the jungle or on the savannah. And that almost certainly meant death. In civilized culture contracts can be easily broken and you can get away with it simply by vanishing into the crowd.

Another complicating element of civilized life is that contracts are constantly changing and the milieu of interlocking contracts to which you and I are subject at this hour and in this place are not the same as when we are somewhere else and with other people.

As one fellow remarked when I was kicking this idea of contractualism around with him: "You’re right. My behavior is not the same when I’m in church as it is when I’m with my drinking buddies. It is a different contract, even different language." That’s what he said. I wouldn’t know about that.

Yet although there are certain differences among the contracts prevailing at different times and places there are certain elements of the human contract that most people seem to think apply everywhere.

The other day I was knocked off balance in a supermarket parking lot when a car suddenly backed out of its parking space. Fortunately, I was able to roll out of the way and didn’t get run over. I suffered only a scraped elbow and knee and a stoved shoulder. What really offended me, though, was that the driver only paused. He never stopped. He was well aware of what he had done, and while several people came to my aid he slowly backed away from the scene so no one could see his license number, and was gone.

In my book, the driver owed it to me to stop and see if I was hurt. I wasn’t really, and an apology would have been the end of it. But someone who saw it happen felt they owed it to me, or to social order, or to something to call 9-1-1 on their cell phone. That brought the rescue squad, an ambulance, the police, the shopping center manager, and the Publix store manager. It took an hour to answer all their questions and sign all their reports, including statements that I refused to go to the hospital and I would not hold Publix or the shopping center liable. Meanwhile, my ice cream was melting in the heat.

A maze of interlocking contracts were at work here. Some were what we would call legal contracts — my signed statements about who was not at fault, for example. But others were what I would call moral contracts. The unknown person who called 9-1-1, for example, apparently felt an obligation to me or to society to see that I got assistance. I think that person acted a bit hastily and would have been more helpful to society as a whole had he or she gotten a license number. But some people do like to use their cell phones at the slightest provocation.

And the universal rage against the driver expressed by the crowd that gathered is evidence of a moral contract that runs very deep in human nature. We care about harm to others because we want to live in a society in which we will not fear harm to ourselves.

What we owe to each other is not as simple as it may seem at first thought. It is pretty much agreed throughout human cultures that killing of another person is wrong. Not just because if you do it you risk punishment. It’s just wrong — but not always.

I well remember my infantry training at the tag end of World War II. I was aware that my mind was being changed about this business of killing. Not only was it now not wrong to kill, but the new contract being imposed upon me held that if I didn’t kill in battle without any sign of hesitation or fear I would be in serious violation of my contract with my buddies, my family, my country.

How do we judge whether an action is right or wrong? Contractualist philosophy holds that thinking about right and wrong is thinking about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject.

What others? Under what circumstances? And what constitutes reasonable rejection?

Suppose the others are your team mates, so to speak, and suppose you and your friends have come to conclude that society has it in for you, and unfairly so? Suppose you have no other real friends?

I caught an interview on a PBS radio station in the wake of the Littleton, Colorado tragedy. A 30-something man, respected in his community, recalled his high-school years. He and a few buddies started out with pranks. Then it got into vandalism. Then there was some shoplifting that escalated to burglary and auto theft. They never got caught, even when they roughed up and robbed an old man one night.

"I knew what we were doing was wrong," this fellow said, "and I knew we should stop doing what we were doing. I sensed that it was way out of hand, but I was afraid to speak up. I thought I would lose all my friends, and they were the only friends I had." What brought a stop to the escalating scene was the death of one of the group in an unrelated accident.

After Littleton this fellow tracked down the other members of his high-school gang. All of them had become upstanding citizens. To a man they confessed they had each had similar negative feelings about their gang activity but felt they could not speak up, felt they were the odd man out, that no one else felt the same way. And the fact was that everyone felt exactly the same way. They knew what they were doing was wrong. But they felt that would not be reasonably accepted by anyone else.

How do we judge whether an action is right or wrong? We judge on the basis of whether it is acceptable in the culture in which we find ourselves. We adapt so we won’t be shunned. In some cultures it has not only been acceptable, but mandatory, to offer human life to the gods. In some cultures it was right to eat visiting missionaries.

Early in my newspaper career, on the Mansfield, Ohio News-Journal I got very deep into a maze of conflicting contracts that I haven’t sorted out yet. Two young men, Robert Murl Daniels and Roy West, had served time at the Mansfield, Ohio Reformatory. Not long after their release they came back and kidnaped and killed the reformatory farm superintendent, his wife and daughter. Fleeing westward across northern Ohio, they killed three other people as they tried to elude capture by commandeering vehicles. They were stopped at a roadblock near the Ohio-Indiana line, in Van Wert county. West was killed in a shootout, as was a highway patrolman, making the death toll seven. Daniels was captured.

I showed up in Van Wert a few hours after Daniels was captured. All the big newspapers and wire services had reporters there. I, a very junior reporter, got the first interview with Robert Murl Daniels — an exclusive interview. Big time!

How did I do that? I got sneaked into the jail by the prosecutor from Mansfield, who was running for re-election and needed some home-town press. Although this was more than 50 years ago in rural Ohio and the Miranda decision was still off in the future I had a sense that there was something morally wrong with this contract with the prosecutor. But the notion that all’s fair in love, war, and gathering the news swept me along. My story made front pages all over the world and I got a big raise.

Later, back in Mansfield, I had a number of jail interviews with Daniels — these in the presence of his court-appointed defense attorney. In the course of these, Daniels came to trust me and he told me something his lawyer thought might save him from the death penalty. He declared that he and West felt they had to fulfill an unwritten contract with the other young men in the reformatory to avenge the sadistic treatment many of them had received at the hands of the farm superintendent.

It was pretty sordid. Daniels said he, West, and other young men had been repeatedly forced to submit to sexual assault by guards, officials, and even some "good" citizens who paid for the privilege. I told my editors but we published nothing until I checked out his claims, and in dozens of interviews with former inmates I found they were substantially true.

We published only a very circumspect story and few other newspapers picked it up. At the trial I was summoned as a defense witness and had to testify under oath as to what Daniels had told me. The jury quickly decided Daniels was guilty of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to death.

I wish I could say that what we printed and what I had to say under oath in court rocked and reformed the Ohio prison system. It didn’t. Instead, the newspaper and I got hate mail and threatening phone calls. In the public mind then in rural Ohio anyone in prison deserves whatever happens to him there even if they are still teen-agers when it happens.

Daniels asked that I be a witness to his execution, and although it was a horrible experience I could not deny his request.

Why? The circumstance, the contract with the prosecutor back there in Van Wert, Ohio — a contract that could not be justified to others, a contract clearly in violation of the prisoner’s rights — got me involved in a contract with Robert Murl Daniels. Under terms of that contract, as I saw it, I owed it to him to be there when he died.

Earlier I asked, if we judge an action to be right, what reason does that give us to do it?

In this case, my reason for doing it — for checking out Daniels’s story — I guess I could say I wanted to uphold the best of journalistic tradition. But there was also an element of greed — a desire for career advancement. No matter what you may think of journalism today — and I have some serious concerns about it — I hope, too, you will agree that I owed something to Robert Murl Daniels. At the time I thought I did. I still do.

I also asked earlier, Suppose we do come up with a reason to do something or not to do something? Why should we give that reason priority over our other concerns and values?

Those are good questions — questions I’m not sure anyone can answer. In the case of Robert Murl Daniels there were compelling reasons not to do something about it. He was clearly in the wrong. On the other hand, he had clearly been wronged by men who had a public duty to "reform" him. That did not excuse him for the deaths of seven people, but the relatively minor crime that got him into the reformatory in the first place certainly did not excuse what was done to him and to others.

I am not sure whether any significant change came about at the Mansfield Reformatory. Our readers and advertisers either didn’t care or didn’t want to hear any more about it. Meanwhile, I had gotten several good job offers and accepted one from the New York Herald-Tribune, then one of the world’s great newspapers. Unfortunately, they went down the tubes very shortly thereafter — and I swear I was not the cause.

The Herald-Tribune credential later got me into magazine journalism and some modest professional success as the managing editor of Consumer Reports and, later, as the founding editor of Inc. magazine.

Contractualism: the notion that thinking about right and wrong is thinking about what we do in terms that could be justified to others and that they could not reasonably reject.

We are social creatures. The problem is that others can unreasonably reject what we all know is right, especially when we have other interests, other contracts, that impinge.

So, rather than risk being shunned — still a very real and effective punishment — we adjust the terms of what we owe to each other to conform to the culture and, within that constraint, to what we think we can get out of it for ourselves.

Not a terribly pretty picture, not nearly as simple as the six commandments. But the six, at least, have human experience going for them. Stick in the first four, cite them as the authority for the six, and you invite — yea, you determine and guarantee — that the culture will be manipulated by those most powerful and articulate and can never be arrived at by reason and consensus.

What do we owe to each other? We — you and I, those of us in this room — owe one another a pledge that such a thing shall never be allowed to happen.

I regard two documents we celebrated earlier this month — the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights — as the most perfect contracts ever in the saga of humankind. Contractualism at its best, you might say.

Sacred, you might even say. Not sacred in the sense of being decreed by some imagined supernatural mind, but sacred in an even larger sense — sacred in the sense of the product of evolved human experience, a rational development from the six commandments, which have their origins in human prehistory.

So far as I know — and I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am — so far as I know not even our nation’s worst enemies have ever attacked this contract as fundamentally flawed.

We are very fortunate to live in this time and place.

And although I feel Professor Scanlon still owes me the price of his book, I am pleased that even if I can’t understand what he’s saying a chaired Harvard scholar and some others are beginning to come around to my way of thinking about where ethics and morality come from.

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Scanlon, T.M. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 1998.

Fukuyama, Francis. "The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order." The Atlantic Monthly,May 1999. p. 59.

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