It seems to me that too many of us have lost our moral compass, never had one, or have one that points in the wrong direction. Clearly the majority of our elected officials and legislators in those in government executive positions, especially in the federal government, no longer think that morality or integrity are important. There are exceptions in some states but not in Ohio where I live.
Deliberate Harm to Others
- I do not understand how or why citizens of the United States would elect the president who is a convicted felon/conman;
- who has admitted to being part of January 6 insurrection, the attack on the United States Constitution and Congress when he said that “we” didn’t have any guns;
- clearly has no understanding of the economy, economics, (see tariffs, tax cuts, increasing federal deficit and projections of declining growth);
- is starving children and adults who are now going hungry in United States and even starving in doing dying, especially in Africa, because all funding for the provision of food and medicine has been eliminated, including federal funding of American food banks;
- has ended the United States and our president being the leader of the free world by attacking our allies with tariffs and threats of using military action to gain territory and abandoning our alliances,
- eliminated research on diseases and basic science research making the United States a second or third rate center for research in the world;
- he is eliminating rules organizations and positions that protect us from pollution and disease.
- The House of Representatives has done nothing to stop him.
- The Senate has done nothing to stop him.
- The United States Congress is no longer a separate branch of government but has become a bastion for the president’s puppets.
- The “big, beautiful” bill will continue and increase tax cuts for the rich, is said to increase taxes on the majority of Americans just as the tariffs have and will cut or cause millions of Americans to lose their access to healthcare through Medicaid.
All of these are immoral actions, perhaps some are even evil because they deliberately harm other people. But what is morality? Dictionaries define ethics and morality as essentially the same. However, I think that ethics is the effort of philosophers to establish a logic of what is right and wrong that would apply to everyone everywhere. Morality is what people think is right and wrong. It is part of our culture. It is about what we do to and with others. My definition of morality is that it is what we think is right and acceptable to do to and for others and what is wrong or evil. The foundation of morality is whether we care about other people and, if so, which people, about what and how much.
Ethics
I attended one course on ethics at The (I hate that ‘The’, but it is part of the legal name established by the Ohio assembly. It makes it look like Ohio State has an inferiority complex.) Ohio State University about two years ago. The principal theories that we studied were Immanuel Kant’s and John Stuart Mill’s, deontology, rigid rules, versus utilitarianism or consequentialism: it’s the results that matter -happiness for the greatest number. A summary outline of both is at the end of this blog.
Kant is complicated. I have not yet read anyone who has constructed even a partially complete ethical theory based on his ideas. Mill and utilitarianism seem more practical, are taught in public policy classes, and I think might be acceptable if we don’t have anything better. But it is hard to implement because we have no accepted way to measure happiness, money doesn’t work – how much is a human life or our health worth? And it doesn’t seem to deal with our address the needs of the people people who are left out of “the greatest number.” If the people left out are the multimillionaires and billionaires and the poor are included, then it becomes much more acceptable.
Lacking Morality
Are Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s termination of food and medical aid to people in other countries and of aid to food pantries in United States moral under either of these systems?
I think that under this simple description of Kant’s position it would be moral because those two and apparently all Republicans in Congress would be willing to make it a universal rule that the no government should give food and medical aid to people or find medical insurance or help the poor. Under Mill, do their actions create greater happiness for the greatest number? If a majority of Americans, or even a significant number exceeding the number of people helped do not want their tax money spent to help people in other countries then apparently it would be ethical under Mill system.
This is a simplistic application of their systems of ethics. It’s possible that if I thought about it more or someone were to give me a critique, I would not be able to defend that application. But I think it demonstrates that our morals are not a logical system or based upon a philosopher’s criteria but are what we as people in communities think is right and wrong. “A social norm (Morality is a social norm.) is a shared standard of acceptable behavior by a group. [1] Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws”. [2] Wikipedia 12-Jun-25
Socially Normal
We are taught or socialized into our communities’ norms. But we choose whether to follow them or not, and these norms were chosen, created, by our ancestors. They are not derived from nature but what we have “naturally” created through trial and error. Morals are about how we relate to other people. Rights are what we demand and expect from others. Duties are what we owe to others and are expected to perform. Currently in America rights are considered by the majority of those who vote to be more important than duties and conservative duties have been abandoned. (It might be a good thing if we could revoke the citizenship of people who don’t vote in elections, but that’s another subject.)
When that say choose, I mean exactly that. The people who become criminals know what morality and the law say about their criminal activities. Politicians know when they are harming people or refusing to help them but do it anyway. We may not do it consciously, but we first choose whether we care about other people, who we care about, how much we care, and what it is about them and our relationship to them we care about and are committed to. We can care about what we get from them, and/or we
can care about how we can help them. The current budget passed by the House of Representatives and being considered by the Senate makes a clear statement that Republicans care about more about the 9% of Americans who are worth $1 million or more, like themselves, then the 91% of us who have less. They are also clearly stating that it is not part of their morality to help
other people, at least through the government.
The “Right” to Suffer
Republicans and libertarians think the people should only get medical insurance through employment or philanthropy. Philanthropy has always been a pittance of what is needed. It has never dealt with more than a very few cases of poverty or lack of healthcare. Hundreds of years if not thousands, the Great Depression and the lack of healthcare before unions force the provision of health insurance from employers have proven that philanthropy is practically worthless. Only when we work together through our government can the needs of those who cannot afford healthcare, who do not have housing and do not have enough food to eat be met.
If, as Republicans are saying in their current proposed budget, the government will not help them they are saying “let the poor and unfortunate suffer or die and reduce the surplus population!” I do not consider Republicans to be either moral or Christian. If there is a life after this, they will have much to answer for.
Quotes
Kant:
- “Act only according to that maxim (rule -Deontology) whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Immanuel Kant
- Respect the dignity and autonomy of all persons. You must not use others solely as tools for your own ends.
- Because all rational beings are capable of moral reasoning, they are equal in moral worth.
Mill:
- Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. – John Stuart Mill
- Utilitarian ethics, also known as utilitarianism, is a moral theory that judges the rightness or wrongness of actions based on their consequences—specifically, the amount of happiness or utility they produce.
- It is a form of consequentialism, meaning the moral worth of an action is determined entirely by its outcomes.
- Happiness = pleasure and the absence of pain. The morally right action is the one that maximizes overall happiness (or well-being) for the greatest number of people.
- Everyone’s happiness counts equally — no one’s well-being is inherently more important than anyone else’s.
Example – Lying to save a life:
- Kantian ethics: Lying is always wrong, even to save someone.
- Utilitarian ethics: Lying is acceptable if it results in more happiness or less harm than telling the truth.
The above material is from ChatGPT 10-Jun-25.
