The Make-up of Morals

"Kill a cockroach, you're a hero. Kill a butterfly, you're a villain."

-Nitzsche

The cockroach is associated with filth, poverty and moves in erratic patterns that disrupt our need for control. The butterfly gracefully drifts, floats and has pretty colours. Despite both playing vital roles in the ecosystem, we've collectively agreed that it’s okay to kill the cockroach.

This is moral judgment in a nutshell. Every action will inevitably cast you as hero in some stories and villain in others.

You can build a business that creates jobs and attracts investors to the area, driving economic growth in the community and it wouldn't matter.

Employees would complain you don't pay enough, and the community would probably whinge about the noise.

If you're a struggling mother who gives their last $20 to a homeless person, you're either a saint or an irresponsible parent.

"More evil gets done in the name of righteousness than any other way"

-Glen Cook

But who gets to decide what constitutes moral behaviour? The problem isn't just that moral judgment is arbitrary. It's that we keep outsourcing it to make it reliable.

Religions claim divine mandate. But which religion and which sect?

Legal systems? The same ones that banned alcohol and then legalised it when the Government realised the revenue it would generate.

What about culture? Whose culture decides? The ones that encourage caring for elderly or the ones that punish women for "honour" rapes?

How about Academic philosophy? Utilitarians say you should sacrifice one life to save five, but Deontologists say no. Both systems represent centuries of rigorous moral reasoning, yet both cannot be simultaneously correct.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Every choice exists within a web of unintended consequences and unavoidable trade-offs.

Parents working 70-hour weeks to provide their family with financial security are accused of being absent from their children's lives. Parents who prioritise being present are accused of being lazy when unable to provide material comforts.

If a man sets boundaries, it's toxic masculinity. If he doesn’t, he's a simp. If a woman wants a career, it's weaponised feminism. if she wants to be a stay-at-home mother, she's submissive.

These aren't character failures. They're inevitable ripple effects in a world where moral judgments has become arbitrary. Right or wrong is barely a factor and they're mostly shaped by aesthetics, personal bias and cultural conditioning.

"The only way to be normal in a society like this, is to be complicit with things that are inhuman."

-Gary Indiana

Good intentions provide no immunity from unintended harm and good outcomes don't validate questionable methods. Participation in modern society requires our involvement in systems and practices that cause harm.

Smartphones rely on minerals mined under exploitative conditions. Tourism is a driving factor behind prostitution in developing nations. Our taxes fund government actions we may oppose.

We cannot extract ourselves from systems of harm, we can only choose which harms we're willing to accept.

"We’re all the villain in someone else's story"

Moral purity and universal approval is impossible and if you dwell on it too much it becomes paralysing. You're not supposed to be everyone's hero. You'll be the bad guy in some stories and that’s okay. But we all inherently know what’s right and wrong, so we don’t need priests, laws or professors to tell us.

If we wipe off the layers that disguise morality today, we'll discover underneath it all is just truth. But because there’s no specific truth that we can all agree on and no one universal consensus that we share, the truth has to be yours, after all you're the one who has to answer for it.

If every decision, action and thought is based on what you believe to be true, then the barrier between right or wrong, at least for you, becomes crystal clear.

This won’t mitigate the ripple effects but at least you can face them with clear eyes and a full heart.

You can say thank you and fuck you without second guessing your why. Success won't be by accident and failure will be by choice.

When your actions are built on truth you don’t need universal approval. You won’t need to apologise for falling short or feel guilty when things work out. Because you know you'll be judged regardless.

The cockroach and butterfly don't receive different treatment because of any difference in their worth, but because we've collectively decided to value one over the other.

Your actions won't be judged by your intentions. They won't be judged with reason or empathy. They will be judged by the outcomes and who it affects.

And if moral judgement is inevitable, then as long it's your truth, the collective will never be able to tell you who you are.

The cockroach may still die.

But at least now you'll know why.