Misunderstood Morality

"That’s the least reason not to do something.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if you aren’t doing something because it’s against the law, that’s the least reason not to do it.”

And that’s where it begins. I am beginning to judge people based on how they react to this statement. I don’t like that about myself but it is true. I expect people to think about it, and if they don’t understand it to ask for clarification. With regards to the above statement about what motivates people to behave in certain ways, I get angry when it’s assumed that the speaker must be immoral, or at the very least, amoral. Because that speaker is and was me. I am not either.

I don’t just blurt this one out at the dinner table to anybody. I never blurt anything out, I am known for that. I sometimes disguise what I say as spontaneous, but I am too guarded for that, and the people that know me, know that about me. I rarely make statements like this one without choosing my words and my audience. I am not given to spontaneous utterances, even when I am drunk. I have never slobbered all over people and professed my undying love and devotion. Slobbered yes, statements with regard to undying devotion…not unless I really meant it and would have said it sober.

There is a moral ladder, perhaps you have heard of it. It’s a theory I didn’t propose, although I wish I was clever enough to have done so. Considering it was written in 1958 perhaps my intellectual prowess is not in question (ahem…) I never had the chance to write it first. Damn Kohlberg.

The person who avoids doing something because it is against the law is either still in the first stage of moral development, or in the fourth. The first being that you behave to avoid punishment, and because you are made to. The fourth being that you obey the law because you bow to authority and want to maintain social order. There are six stages.

“The least reason NOT to do something is strictly because it is against the law.”

Not the most poetic of phrases, cumbersome in fact. Hard to wrap your tongue around. Not a casual remark to be made during a casual conversation.

I am still fuming about the aftermath. I regret saying it because as soon as I did the conversation was over. It was as if I had said that I would have shot the pope myself to put him out of his misery, while downloading the latest Hollywood release on my pirated software with a computer I stole from a ninety year old paraplegic. I never even had a chance.

originally written in 2008, hence the dated reference to the Pope...