Another lingering reflection, from a recent Randoms...:
Why is moral authority so universally appealing?
But first, what is morality anyway?
How about a short version AND a longer version?
Short version:
To me, it looks like morality is mostly a device, a mechanism, a construct—created by a group of people to achieve a goal.
The goal seems to be oriented to something the group maintains as an ideal, usually some presumed kind of good. If something violates an ideal of the group, it is deemed immoral (it is bad). To be moral, among other things, often is not to be immoral.
When someone is described as a moral person, it tends to mean that the person is in some particular way a representation of what is good, as defined by a group. Those that maintain the morality of the group reinforce the ideals of the group and are accepted by the group. Those that are immoral are not accepted by the group because they don't reinforce the ideals of the group.
This question has likely created no small amount of debate and discussion throughout time, especially when the details involved seem to vary—over time or across cultures. Rather than attempt a historical review, I'm going to just wing it here a bit.
It seems to me that morality is a sense of something that relates to goodness, that that goodness involves something larger than just what is good for only one person, and that it includes a certain kind of actionability. In other words, it is more than just ideas about what is good.
When we believe, for example, personally or collectively that something is good, we also tend to believe that such goodness should be manifest and available to something between just me and all of humanity. Because it is good (whatever it is), it should be reinforced for the benefit of everyone.
Morality, then, is a mechanism that enables that manifestation, either by access or by enforcement. And, attendant to what is good is often the prevention of whatever disables that goodness, or of what might be termed badness.
It is right at this point, that morality's actionability seeks efficacy. It acquires a goal; a goal designed to promote the good and inhibit the bad.
And, often, it is here where morality seems to beg for a little push—as it takes on an element of authority to achieve this goal. Moral authority, then, emerges as a means of helping secure the desired good (and constricting threats to it—whatever is deemed bad).
Moral authority comes in many shapes and sizes. Religion, for example, has often been used as an authoritative way of maintaining morality. But, other social structures use similar dynamics (or, is it the other way around?). What is interesting is that moral authority seems to often become fixated more on immorality—on preventing what it perceives to be bad (even to the point where what it claims is bad actually isn't necessarily bad)—than it does on what is good.
Perhaps, some 'moral' issues may be of use.
Drinking: getting drunk may be viewed as immoral, because of its potentially 'bad' consequences. A moral authority, then, may say that drinking is immoral, too, because it can lead to drunkenness. But, another version of moral authority may counter-claim that as long as drinking (or being drunk) doesn't hurt anyone, then it isn't immoral. Is drinking inherently good?
Sex: morality might state that sexuality is not immoral, but at the same time that there is such a thing as sexual immorality. The distinction again might be that as long as someone doesn't get hurt (bad), moral authority should claim that sexuality, in and of itself, is not immoral and more than having a drink is.
How about a bigger one—war, or abortion: The morality of either is often determined by an appeal to some type of authority that attempts to make one perspective normative for all. Each perspective uses the basis of the goal of a common good that is either achieved or violated by each.
In the end, there is what seems to be a givenness that there is some kind of common good that is desired and that that good should be available to all and protected from that which would inhibit it. In order to achieve that, some basis of authority needs to be maintained in order to normalize it.
This, it seems to me, is the essence of what morality is or, at least, how it seems to function. And, for good or bad, morality and moral authority seem to go hand in glove.
Perhaps, now, we can return to the original question:
Why is moral authority so universally appealing?
