Intuitionism
Authoritarianism
Divine Command and Attributes
Ethical Egoism
Utilitarianism
Virtue and the Golden Rule
Negative Morality:
Divine Hierarchy
A year ago, we did a series on morality, where we looked at the philosophy of morality, and the moral systems that are discussed in intellectual conversations. Since then, it occurred to me while thinking about the viewpoints of villains and bad people, as well as some misguided people with good hearts, that there are other moral views we have not talked about. These moral systems are not widely considered by philosophers, because they cause oppression and suffering, rather than reduce it. So I have decided to do a mini-series called Negative Morality, where we take a look at these moral systems, so that we may avoid their pitfalls in our own views.
If I were to start the moral series over, I would put Ethical Egoism and Authoritarianism in the negative morality category. But the original series has a structure to it, and I don’t want to mess that up by reclassifying them.
Our topic for today is what I call the divine hierarchy. The concept is simple: the degree to which you are good or evil, holy or unholy, worthy or unworthy, is not primarily determined by what you do, but by what you are. It usually goes something like this: above all are the gods (or just God), beneath them are holy beings like angels, below them are mortal men, below mortals are the animals, and below the animals are demons and unholy monsters. Within each category, humans especially, the beings may be divided into sub-classes, which may either be stratified into discrete levels or smeared out over a continuous spectrum.
This leads to the divine hierarchy’s biggest and most obvious flaw: it makes it very easy to justify prejudice of all kinds. In the hierarchy, men are usually placed above women, the upper classes above the lower classes, and the people of the nations whose armies conquer above the peoples who are conquered. For example, the West has a historical dark side of seeing the world as full of morally inferior savages, theirs for the conquering. History is much more complicated than that, of course, with many positives and negatives, and it can be argued that the attitude of colonialism has greatly diminished from the modern world, but that is a discussion for another time. The point is that a morality structured around a divine hierarchy makes it easy to justify racism, sexism, and discrimination by all other kinds of immutable characteristics. “Know your place” is a common phrase to hear from someone higher in the hierarchy to someone lower down who tries to exercise more freedom than is considered appropriate for them.
In some versions of divine moral hierarchy, it is possible to move up or down the spectrum by performing good or bad actions. More often than not, it’s easy to move down, but very hard to move back up. There is a set of actions, usually based on notions of cleanliness and obedience, that are identified as “bad,” not because the consequences hurt people, but because the action covers you with an invisible sludge called “sin” and makes you less holy. Once covered in sin, there is one of two ways to have it removed, depending on which hierarchy model one believes in. The first is to do penance, an action prescribed by the religious leaders as a medicine for the soul, which may or may not result in good actually being done. The second is to pray that God (or whichever of the gods views you favorably) will be merciful and “wash your sin away” instead of bringing upon you the punishment which your unholy existence deserves.
It should be noted that divine moral hierarchy is not the only context in which sin and religion can be viewed. Some perspectives are not so harsh. There are also other ways that people justify prejudice. We have talked about some of them in other contexts elsewhere on this blog, and may do so more in the future.
If used in a fantasy story, a divine moral hierarchy doesn’t have to be bad. Middle Earth, the setting for The Lord of the Rings, exists in a Divine Hierarchy, with Illuvatar the creator on top; then the Valar, which included Sauron’s master; then the Maiar, which include Sauron and the wizards; and then the elves, dwarves, hobbits, and men. It is also present in the lesser known Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis, with Maleldil (basically Jesus) on top, the Eldila (angel-like sci-fi beings) below him, the hnau (sentient creatures) below them, and non-sentient animals implicitly below them. In fiction, we can look at the downsides of a divine hierarchy, or anything really, and say “in this world, the bad consequences just don’t happen.”
If a moral system leads to more suffering than would exist without it, then it is not moral. The idea that people have moral worth based on the genetic lottery of birth clearly does more harm than good, and we should train ourselves to avoid slipping into that way of thinking. If we see others who are consciously or unconsciously influenced by a negative morality, then we should kindly and respectfully ask questions that lead them toward recognizing it.
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