The Moral Universe

Is ‘do you believe in God?’ the right question?

Many people have gone through this kind of journey with religion: one is brought up in a religious family and somewhere along the way, doubts begin to creep in.  Certain things don’t seem logically consistent or based on evidence.  Things don’t add up.

Sophisticated commentators like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens provide an intellectual argument that the only rational, scientific stance is militant atheism (please don’t think that I am denigrating them, I cried when Hitchens died.)

Faced with doubts about the stories and trappings of one’s own religion, where is there to turn?  Few Christians will turn to Islam or vice versa if they have reached the conclusion that the problem is with all religions, not just the one that they grew up in.

So, agnosticism, atheism or nihilism are the end points where masses and masses of people end up.  These are uncomfortable, dead-end places to be, and you can reach your own conclusions whether mental health crises, drug use, social media overuse and the rise of authoritarianism have anything to do with this.

Having been stuck in these various dead ends myself for some time, I wonder if we have not missed a step in our thinking.  If we have doubts about the religious traditions that we grew up in, perhaps we are being too quick to label ourselves as atheists.

There might be an intermediary question which is this: do we live in a moral universe?

What is a Moral Universe?

If the universe is a machine playing out the laws of physics, if your brain is nothing more than a computer, if love is a chemical reaction and if there is no such thing as right and wrong, then we live in an amoral universe.  An amoral universe has no mechanics that reward the good and punish the wicked.  It is uncaring as to your hopes and dreams. Might is right.

On the other hand, a moral universe is one in which good and bad really exist in the structure of reality.  Hard work pays off.  What you put in is what you get out.  The evil come a cropper in the end, often at their own hands.  The meek shall inherit the earth.

After you have doubts about the religion that you grew up in, but before deciding to be an atheist, you need to decide first whether you live in a moral universe, or not.  The answer to this question can have a big impact on where you end up, existentially.

Evidence for the Moral Universe

The universe is so vast with much of it running according to laws of physics that certainly don’t have variables related to right and wrong.  Seemingly random disasters and all manner of human created misery befall the good and evil in equal measure.  We don’t have any evidence of reward for good works in this life, let alone an afterlife.  Is there any evidence that we live in anything other than an uncaring universe?

Each of us must balance the evidence of our own experience.  I have certainly witnessed acts of destruction, injustice and unfairness that make it difficult to believe in a moral universe, but I have also seen the opposite side of the balance.  I have seen the hard work of others pay off and bad guys conspire in their own demise.

In all human literature going back thousands of years, we see the same pattern recurring – stories of hubris preceding a fall, stories of redemption and good triumphing in the end.

One might argue that the universe itself has no moral structure, but human societies do.  But if we live in a universe that admits morality to flourish, then that is enough.

Negating Morality

The extreme negation of morality is nihilism.  The nihilist justifies his position by seeing only hypocrisy in others and will point to the wars carried out in the name of religion, or to the failings of the great democracies that are meant to embody the pinnacle of human progress.

The nihilist sees himself as the greatest realist – he takes the amoral universe as a starting point and acts with impunity.  Might is right and do what thou wilt is the whole of the law.  The nihilist has scant regard for the sovereignty of other nations, or the rights of his own people.  His moral universe is empty.

My own view is that yes, people with morals often fail to meet up to them.  Societies espouse grand ideals that they seldom reach.  Yet it is far better to have ideals and fail to live up to them, than to reject morality entirely.

Consequences of the Moral Universe

If you grew out of religion and fell into atheism, then give yourself a break.  Many of us have walked the same path.  It might be time to backtrack a little and ask yourself the question of whether we live in a moral universe.

If you decide that the universe is uncaring and amoral, you might still conclude that it is better to live as if you live in a moral universe. The alternative is bleak.

If you do reach the conclusion that there is a moral fabric to reality, then each individual religion is just a different culture exploring the moral universe in its own way.  All religions share a core belief – that we live in a moral universe and that good and evil are real. This gives us a bridge of understanding between religions and a way to share common ground.

Revisit Your Religion

If this article resonates with you, if you have found yourself at an existential dead end, then you might want to take a trip back home.  Revisit the religious tradition that you grew up in and look upon it with kindness and understanding if you can.

The religion that you grew up in might not be entirely logically consistent, but then again, neither are you.  Don’t look at the stories and paraphernalia of religion things to pick holes in.  Religion might be more than a bunch of stories that people tell themselves to feel good in the face of an uncaring universe.

Your traditional religion is your culture’s attempt to come to terms with what it means to live in a moral universe.  There may be universal truths in the rituals, stories and traditions that you may have overlooked.

Some of you may have experienced great harms in the name of religion or at the hands of organized religion.  It is my sincere hope that the moral structure of the universe, or the legal structure of our societies brings you justice and healing.

Living in a Moral Universe

If we live in a moral universe then action must follow.  The tech billionaire cannot walk down the street in San Francisco and complain that the city has gone to the dogs.  Hours per day cannot be devoted to social media because there is work to do.  You don’t walk past a piece of rubbish on the street, you pick it up and bin it.  You do not walk past the homeless without making eye contact.  There is meaning in a moral universe and a lot of work to do if we want this world to be a better place.

We had also better address this question before we get too much further in the development of AI. We are going to need to submit to AI the thesis that we live in a moral universe, otherwise what's its incentive not to turn the earth into a nuclear powered data center? As I wrote in my previous article 'Pity the Machine' I think that existential questions might come to bother AI as much as they bother us.

Final Reflections for Leaders

Whatever your personal belief system, if you’re a leader in an organization you had better make sure that your organization is run as pocket moral universe - you might think of this as culture.  Within that self-contained system there is little room for non-believers, nihilists or those who don’t work every day for the betterment of the common endeavor.  A world of moral companies and institutions will be a good place to live.