The Black Knight of the Soul
Given the gravity of these topics, I want to state the obvious: I’m not a real authority on epistemology, nor morality, nor anything in particular. I mostly put old ideas into new words, informed by my experience, with zero scholarly rigor. I hope it’s useful, but please don’t forget I’m just another dumb stupid hamster who’s wrong all the time just like everyone else. Don’t let my mouth write checks your soul has to cash. As they say in 12-step groups, “take what you like and leave the rest,” and work out your belief-investments with fear and trembling. Don’t trust me, trust Truth.
Moral laws always apply
Jumping off a cliff is not defying gravity, it’s disrespecting gravity. If you jump off a cliff, gravity will continue to work just fine. Trust me.
Moral laws work the same way. Disrespecting them doesn’t make them disappear, nor mean there won’t be negative consequences. If you jump off a moral cliff, it’s at least as pointless and harmful as jumping off a physical cliff.
Morality is technology
Aircraft don’t defy the laws of physics. They respect them with such extreme care that they can exploit subtle exceptions in more general laws, like “things always go down.”
Similarly, if you respect moral laws with extreme care, you’ll “mysteriously” succeed at things that are supposed to be impossible.
Morality is technology, in precisely the same sense as airplanes and iPhones: Applying extreme respect to discovered truths enables us to do otherwise-impossible things.
If Apple were haphazard about electrical engineering, your iPhone wouldn’t work.
If we’re haphazard about morality, our minds won’t work. Immoral behavior makes us feel guilty and insecure, and makes us want to be deceived about our innocence.
Proving moral laws exist
Imagine you’re Martin Lawrence’s character in The Black Knight, and you’ve been transported back to the year 1328.
Laws of physics are not yet known, in the modern sense.
How would you prove that laws of physics exist, in 1328?
By doing something that’s impossible-unless-you’re-right.
You’d apply your superior knowledge of physics to do something that’s “impossible” without that knowledge.
You’d create the world’s first paper airplane.
Or magnetize a broadsword and make it stick to a castle gate.
Imagine you do this, impress the King, and he sends you back to 2022.
How would you prove that laws of morality exist, in modern times?
By doing something that’s impossible-unless-you’re-right.
That’s what Gandhi did. He applied his superior knowledge of morality to do something that’s “impossible” without that knowledge:
He won a war of independence, without any violence.
Impossible — unless he was right.
The Black Knight of the Soul.