Moral Clarity Is Beyond

Lawyers and Judges

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. You may contact Thomas Martin at: martint@unk.edu.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, it to shut it again on something solid. --G. K. Chesterton

The 1930s British journalist, G. K. Chesterton, noted that one of the predictable problems in America was that her citizens would no longer recognize their unalienable rights as being self-evident. It is important to the spiritual health of America, given that this country is founded upon the ideal that we understand the nature of our unalienable rights:

. . . that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In the exit polls after the most recent election, pollsters and nightly newscasters were surprised to find that many Americans were more concerned about “moral issues” than the state of the economy, jobs, the environment, terrorists, or health care. This observation, however, is misleading. It is not as though morally minded people understand morality as an issue separate from the economy, environment, jobs, and health care. The blatant disregard for the environment that is under man’s stewardship, of an economy that fosters some of the rich by preying on the poor, of denying health care, and of pharmaceutical companies overcharging everyone are all immoral.

And, yes, abortion, gay marriage, and assisted-suicide are moral issues. The mistake of the “free thinkers” (as Chesterton would call them) is that they simply deny the legitimacy of the moral realm altogether, thereby making all moral issues into mere legal issues, equating right and wrong with what is legal or illegal. But by doing this they bypass the opportunity--indeed, their right--to address these issues out of court. Hence, the moral realm is brushed aside for the politics of the majority deciding what is right and wrong in their own eyes.

I am here reminded of Martin Luther King’s distinction in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail between a just law and an unjust law:

An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

That abortion denies the human personality of the unborn child is without question. At the center of the debate about the legality of abortion is the argument over what constitutes the beginning of a child’s life: Is it at conception or only upon breath taking? To say the latter is the first sign of life is biologically thoughtless. The life my parents gave to me was theirs to give, but they were not the authors of my life any more than they were the creators of my life. Life is a circular process; when human life and consciousness come into being is a mystery.

The unalienable right to life means that I respect my own life as well as the right of others to life. It means that my own life, no less than others’ lives, is a priceless gift, to be treasured, preserved, enjoyed, and rightly used.

I have been further endowed with the unalienable right to liberty to lead my life in the pursuit of happiness. Commonly, the word liberty is used interchangeably with freedom; however, liberty is not the same as freedom in the sense that I am free or at liberty to do whatever I want so long as I do not harm others. This idea of freedom mistakenly assumes that a person cannot harm himself. It further overlooks the fact that though we may not be harming others, we still may not be concerned with anyone’s happiness other than our own, and that is downright selfish.

Unalienable liberty is analogous to the liberty sailors are granted. In leaving the ship, sailors are free to relax and enjoy the sights, but are expected to act in a manner becoming of a well-ordered individual who is a representative of the United States Navy. Liberty is not a license for a sailor to act as he or she pleases--that would land him or her in the brig. Rather liberty is freedom from the enforced routine and regulations of the sailor’s daily life, in order that he or she can enjoy life and pursue happiness under the guidance of his or her own ordered soul.

Therefore, liberty is the freedom to practice the virtues of self-control, prudence, temperance, courage, humility, chastity, and charity that are necessary if a person is to be liberated from himself. To have the government legislate the moral realm is to eliminate liberty by eliminating the free, moral choices of the individual. Thus, liberty, as an unalienable right that allows the individual to choose goodness, is necessary for the practice of virtue in the pursuit of happiness. In this way the moral health of America is tied to state of each citizen’s soul.

The order of our rights as Americans is logical. First we have life, and then we have the liberty necessary for the pursuit of happiness and goodness. We must be liberated in order to pursue happiness, and the nature of our liberation is that we must be liberated from our own selfish cares and wants for our own greater good and the good of America.

In all of this I am reminded of these words ringing in the moral realm, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

And so it goes.     *

“Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, no example sway thee, no persuasion move thee to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so thou shalt live jollily, for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.” --Benjamin Franklin