Politics

Moral Conviction

Our courts and our legislators should never solely be driven by conscience

Photo by Marcus Wallis on Unsplash

I listened to Moral Combat on the Hidden Brain podcast yesterday. The theme of that show was the near impossibility of combatting moral certitude with logic.

Moral convictions are opinions we know to be true without needing any other justification; ‘murder is wrong’ is one that most of us share, but other certitudes are less widely held and can cause frustration for those who are not so adamant. Sometimes both sides of an issue are driven by deeply held convictions, sometimes one side is supported by science and evidence, but moral certainty is always highly resistant to change.

As the podcast discusses, disagreement over moral issues can lead to mistrust and hate. When an opinion is so fundamentally ingrained in our psyche, anyone disagreeing can be seen as evil. The refusal of someone to accept what is so obvious to us can cause us to try to rationalize their beliefs. We cannot understand why they disagree with something so obviously true! The results of that rationalization can further the perception that our opponent is evil, untrustworthy, dangerous, and perhaps even not deserving of life.

Discrimination, murders, atrocities, and even wars can follow.