The Loss of Moral Knowledge in the Modern World

George Haraksin of the Reasons to Believe apologetics organization spoke at the Southern Evangelical Seminary Apologetics Conference on October 11 on the disappearance of moral knowledge. To illustrate his point, he said that Google maps have replaced skill many people once had at reading maps and finding obscure locations. “Spatial memory’ and ‘mental mapping’ has [i.e., have] disappeared in a generation of people.” He finds this true of his students, and even colleagues who are younger. There is thus a “disappearance of directional knowledge.”

Haraksin then talked about the disappearance of moral knowledge. He oversees the scholar community at Reasons to Believe, and is also a father. “How do you make a good person,” he asked. Like directional knowledge, generally held moral knowledge has disappeared in our society. Following the Christian philosopher and University of Southern California professor Dallas Willard and his book “The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge,” Haraksin quoted Willard saying “there is now in our contemporary time no recognized systematic body of moral teaching that can be presented as moral knowledge by the institutions of Western society.” Haraksin then summarized some of the conclusions of Willard and others regarding the lack of a common morality in contemporary society.

Confidently Holding Moral Beliefs

He asked what we mean by knowledge. It is not simply belief, or a belief which is in fact true, but a true belief which is justified. Again quoting Williard, he said that “knowledge is our ability or the human capacity to represent things as they are on appropriate basis of thought and experience.” However, one can have a belief with “some evidence” which is nevertheless untrue. Truth is essential to a evidentially supported belief being knowledge.

Knowledge is thus obviously “not a simple matter.” Philosophers identify “at least” three ways people know. First, there is “knowledge by personal acquaintance.” This involves being “directly aware of something.” We are directly aware of the things we experience in ordinary life. Secondly, there is there is “knowledge as a mastery of data, or know-how.” How to change a tire or play the piano would be examples. Thirdly, there is “propositional knowledge.”

He said that “when it comes to morality, we can have a direct awareness of right and wrong, even if we couldn’t propositionally articulate it.” This obviously is not the same as having an ethical system. But where moral knowledge is concerned, that gives “a person authority and power to do something in another person’s life.” Where one is recognized as having knowledge in a particular area, such as plumbing or dentistry, “people hand over trust” to others to intervene in their lives in that area, but not in other areas. Yet morality informs all of life. Secular law can intervene in any area, but without a common morality to back it up, it is not generally recognized as righteous, and people do not know that what is legally expected ought to be done. Haraksin referred to the prophet Hosea who said, “my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos.4:6).” Romans chapter 1 also refers to “the suppression of knowledge” leading to a world of violence and oppression.

The Loss of Moral Knowledge

In the present day moral knowledge is lost or obscured. Haraksin referred to the words of Martin Luther King and his booklet “Knock at Midnight,” referring to Jesus’s parable of the lampstand in Luke chapter 11 (Lk.11;33-36). King said that today, morality has become a matter of “what the majority is doing… right and wrong are relative to likes and dislikes.” But even though morality has been reduced to preference, paradoxically people speak as if morality were real. There is “much moral talk, and so much morals legislation in our society.” People talk a lot about morality. They are not simply expressing their own preferences, but making claims about what other people should or shouldn’t do. Pro-life Americans have long noted that people who profess to be “pro-choice” may be vegetarians, or campaign against factory farming. Similarly relativists may be opposed to “bullying, sexual assault, or greed” at the same time that they deny universal moral principles.

“What are some of the causes of the disappearance” of moral knowledge, he asked. They are, he said, “legion in a lot of places.” These include “the discrediting of religion, particularly Christianity, maybe even Judaism, as a source of knowledge of reality, and especially moral reality.” People still may go to religious institutions “for comfort,” but not moral instruction. Secondly, “moral facts” have been rejected in favor of “moral opinions.” Thirdly, there is a rejection of the idea of the soul as a focus of moral activity, replacing it with physicalistic explanations of human behavior. Where an horrific crime has been committed, people ask what was wrong with the criminal’s brain. People back away from calling a bad act “immoral or evil.” To speak of brains as “immoral” sounds strange, it appears to be “a category mistake.”

A further reason is that differences between cultures are used to show that there are no universal moral principles, and so no standards of judgment that could be used to judge people in other cultures. Even Christian students may say “everyone believes differently about morality.” Finally, moral principles are “seen as power plays.” They are not regarded as something to be trusted, “but rather a manipulation.” Incredibly, “morality is seen as even harmful.” There is no talk of “what the vision of the good life is, what is a good person, and how do I become a good person,” Instead, ethics students are given moral dilemmas to wrestle with, but not told what true morality is.

Moral Confusion in the Institutions

Quoting John Mearsheimer, a political scientist and international relations scholar at the University of Chicago, Haraksin said that today’s universities try to “develop critical thinking, broaden intellectual horizons,” expose people to new ideas, and “enhance self-awareness.” But universities are not concerned with “providing truth.” Mearsheimer explicitly stated that “we’re not there to teach morality.” The result, Haraksin said, is “a confusing environment for a person.” He referred to Scott Soames – like Willard, a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California – who said that “since no single moral perspective dominates the others in society, especially the university, intimidation, coercion, and condescension fill the gap left by the absence of moral reasoning.”  

Haraksin also cited philosopher of science Michael Ruse, who said that people who believe that horrific crimes are acceptable are “simply mistaken.” But he did not say “immoral” or “evil.” Like Nietzsche in the nineteenth century, Ruse followed the practice of collapsing “a moral category into a rational or intellectual category.” This, Haraksin said, “has been a big shift.” Yet despite pronouncing against atrocities, Ruse also said that “God is dead, so why should I be good,” and “morality is flim-flam.” Thus, Ruse seemed to both affirm and deny real, objective morality. Although there have been scientific efforts to “provide a foundation for moral knowledge,” these have been unsuccessful, Haraksin said, and the secular world is left with “moral nihilism.”

Finally, there has been a shift from “knowing moral facts, to moral opinions.” Little children have an innate sense of morality, which is frequently heard when a child says “that’s not fair.” Children must be purged “out of their moral awareness.” Unhappily, “this is actually what is happening in schools.” He pointed to a website for elementary school children, “Binky’s Games of Facts and Opinions.” In the game, facts can be shown, judgments of value are held to be opinions. Similarly, in the Common Core curriculum for elementary and high school, children are taught that all moral or aesthetic evaluations are opinions, yet the students must sign a statement that they will not “cheat or bully people.” Again, there appears to be confusion about how objective moral judgments are.

The Desire for and Aversion to Morality

Thus, students are effectively taught that all moral and aesthetic claims “are opinion claims, because you can’t show that they are true, or knowledge.” This means that “morality disappears.” People can hold beliefs about what is moral, but they are not commonly accepted knowledge. Haraksin said to the contrary that “a statement can actually be true even if I can’t prove it.” One can have a true, and thus factual, opinion of the weather, he said. Our innate moral awareness is clearly a fact. He seemed to suggest that the burden of proof lies with those who would deny its authority. Quoting James Davison Hunter, Haraksin said:

“As it is currently institutionalized, public education does just the opposite of what it intends. In its present form it undermines the convictions upon which character must be based, if it is to exist at all. We say we want character; we even legislate that way in our day, but we really don’t know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a creedal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates, and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character, but without unyielding conviction. We want strong morality, but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame. We want virtue, but without moral justifications that invariably offend others. We want good without having to name evil. We want decency without the authority to insist upon it, and we want community without any limitations on personal freedom. We want what we cannot possibly have on the terms we want it.”

Haraksin also quoted T.S. Elliott saying that “we’re all looking for a system so perfect that we don’t have to be good.” This, Haraksin said, “is the waters we swim in.”

In response to a question, and noting Richard Dawkins recent advocacy of “cultural Christianity,” Haraksin said that “people are recognizing now the vacuum. It’s like the water has been sucked out.” Another questioner said that a common practice today is to apply moral standards to people we don’t like. Haraksin responded that people do not apply skepticism about the commonly accepted morality of the past (such as the commandment against theft) when morality is in their favor.

In response to another questioner, he said that we are indeed not in an era of relativism – but citing a book of the same name – in an era of “new absolutes.” These absolutes attempt to prohibit obedience to the precepts of traditional religion and morality from public, and now increasingly private life. They are based not on reason or revelation but simply on political power.

Haraksin said regarding the new moral environment: “I actually don’t think people have been reasoned into these positions, I think people have been massaged into these positions.” In particular, “the technologies we use massage us in a certain direction.” He noted “from elementary school teaching all the way to the Supreme Court how you are taught that you create your identity, you’re not given an essence or an identity.” Technology “massages” us into creating our identity.

Haraksin clearly laid out the problem of the loss of moral knowledge, but left the issue of its recovery for future treatment another day. He did seem to propose two building blocks however – the innate sense of morality that children must be trained to discredit, and “creedal order” referred to by Hunter. (This writer would add the right of conscience, the right not to take an action believed to be evil, as intuitively known in a proper account of moral knowledge). It is unreasonable to expect unanimity in society, but if creedal order is to contribute to moral knowledge, it must be widely held, as it frankly no longer is. Apologetics supporting a personal, benevolent God, and Christianity in particular, will be important. Recovery cannot be expected in the near future.

In that regard, Haraksin said that “Christians have to have courageous, confident humility in demonstrating in our actions that we … have moral knowledge … If it’s going to be recovered, we better have a good vision, we better intend to do it, and we got to think carefully about the means of making good people.”