What is morally good? I know, I know – don’t worry – that time and time again, as far back in time as we have written evidence, far wiser persons than myself have tried to answer this question. Moreover, written evidence tells us that concepts of morality are mutable. Very much so.
For instance, a conundrum that still vexes philosophers is referred to today as the “trolley problem”: Can we justify sacrificing one person in order to save many? I believe the Utilitarians, for instance, assessed the moral worth of actions in terms of the sum total of their consequences. Emanuel Kant did not. But I am not going to chew that bone.
I periodically live in a village where most people are relatively poor, and none are filthy-rich. But nobody starves here. Here, nobody has to sleep on the street, and the terminally ill are cared for.
Here, far from tourist traps, they celebrate Semana Santa every year just as earnestly as they have done for centuries. I have been here for many years, and there is no change with regard to Semana Santa. We almost all turn up and wait patiently at our respective corners and all along the route of the famous processions. We fall silent as they pass. Some spectators are dressed in finery to show respect, others show respect by waiting for hours in their everyday sweaters, because at this time of year, the weather is still cool.
From my bed, I heard a procession pass my house in the night. I knew it was that of el Nazareno, the most beloved of them all. I used to get up, but now the night was cold, so I didn’t. They had started their long walk at 3 AM with a very arduous uphill climb.
This morning I felt guilty and went out early to look for them. They had been walking all night to the farthest corners of our village. They must have been exhausted!
I found them relaxing around and on the steps up to a rather grand church, which had opened its doors to them. There they chatted happily and munched sandwiches as sunbeams started to trickle down to us all. So there, on the raised church square, they were happily mingling with the beautiful effigies they had been carrying and with us spectators.
I left them to go down to look for a good place from which I would be able to film them once they set off again, and found a doorstep blessed by the sun on which I could wait.
Do you see what is happening to my language? I am not a Catholic, not even a believer, yet I write “blessed by the sun”. That is what happens to us, you see, in a village where people believe in being “good”, and where Semana Santa and the solemn (and very beautiful) processions remind us not to forget how much we depend upon one another.
I have nothing to contribute to the solution of the trolley problem. I was once taught the Catechism and the Lord’s prayer. All that I retain of the two is that I must not want what is not mine, must not tell lies and must not deliberately hurt anybody. Simple as that. Does it really have to be more complicated?
Yes, I’m afraid it does. For example:
Regarding not wanting what is not mine: If I want to live with the person I love and have a child, I will want a flat. And I will never be able to afford a flat, no matter how hard I work. So I will not be able to live with the person I love and will not be able to have a child.
Regarding not telling lies: If the tax man demands that I declare all my work so that he can tax me, that would be fine if I were able to pay both my bills and the tax. So I must lie and do some undeclared work.
Regarding not hurting anybody: Yes, there are some people in this world I wish would die a horrible death. Fortunately, I will never have the chance to hurt them. But if thoughts could kill, some people would be dead.
So much for being morally good.