This brings us back to the beginning, because the act of choosing between two ethical principles is quite similar to the act of choosing between two actions based on one of those principles. In other words, we now require some morality more fundamental than both of those principles that will allow us to judge between them. Several philosophers have seen this, and more often than not they have called upon something vaguely described as “conscientious feelings”1 or “sentiment.”2 So there is, after all, a third possibility for deciding what is right or wrong: discarding principles altogether in favor of an intuitive approach. Such an approach would have to consider all situations as interactions between people (or, at least, between entities deserving of respect and care) and take form in a sense of empathy and compassion for all involved, including oneself. Such general principles as “it is wrong to steal” would have to be seen as rules stemming from the understanding of how it would affect the owner of the stolen object for it to be taken. This empathy is not a learned skill — our dependence on others is part of our psychological makeup — so to deny it would be in a sense to renege on one’s participation in the human race. This certainly addresses the question of “why be moral?” in a way previous theories have not, but in the end not all the contradictions are resolved. While it is demonstrably possible to act with compassion to all involved in a situation, problems do arise wherein one person’s happiness must be sacrificed for that of another. In a scenario where only the person able to decide between these two people’s well-being is acting out of empathy, one runs directly into the old problem — there is no one right answer for everyone — and now one’s own feelings are guaranteed to be hurt in the process. An interesting possibility, however, is that such contradictions could be resolved if everyone involved was acting out of empathy; the contradictions to which we are referring seem only to arise when conflicts of interest occur, and these generally arise out of a sense (more likely than not, a quite normal sense) of selfishness. If this is done away with, and getting one’s own way did not result in drastically more happiness than another getting their way instead, the moral dilemma of deciding between them is avoided altogether, and can presumably be decided on a basis of need or some other logical method upon the validity of which all can agree.
So which of these approaches is correct? To decide would be begging the question, as it would necessitate the use of some judgment process to decide between them, and that judgment process would need to be based on some approach like the ones outlined above. In effect, by making a decision one renders oneself ineligible to decide. What can be said, however, is that there are certain moralities which are mature, and others which are immature. A mature morality has the property that no one overruling principle is seen as governing what is right or wrong, acknowledges that principles may conflict, and either effectively discards the notion of general principles altogether based on this dilemma or provides some internally consistent and non-arbitrary method of resolving it (which itself must be based on a mature morality). Thus, the cultural relativity argument would not serve as a mature morality, while a morality based on the understanding of the interdependence of humans would.
One of the obstacles to a mature morality is the conviction that there must be some essence of reality, some absolute truth, to the concept of “good”. Objectively, it makes just as much sense to believe that “good” is a word defined on the fly based on other often unconscious judgments about something as it does to believe that there is some real quantity called “goodness” or “rightness” that can be discovered for a particular object or action. It may seem easy to discard this notion when put into that light, but the typical Western mindset is that there are certain actions (like cannibalism and incest) that are wrong by nature, regardless of any mitigating circumstances, and to suggest otherwise even in the present day is a good way to be accused of moral blindness.
Richard Rorty has taken this concept of rightness as bequeathed by humanity by suggesting that through language, we make our own truths by redescribing the world in different ways that have different utility. For Rorty, the concept that there is some essential truth about rightness as a property of reality, to be discovered by some objective inquiry, is simply untenable, since by merely describing this “truth” we’ve uncovered we make many choices of wording and symbolism that affect what our description does and means. To say something is “true”, then, means only that it is helpful in the context of the role we wish it to play.