IMMORALITY
From Philosopedia
IMMORALITY
- • I wonder why murder is considered less immoral than fornication in literature.
- —George Moore
- • I wonder why murder is considered less immoral than fornication in literature.
- • Immoral, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expedience; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
- —Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
- • Immoral, adj. Inexpedient. Whatever in the long run and with regard to the greater number of instances men find to be generally inexpedient comes to be considered wrong, wicked, immoral. If man’s notions of right and wrong have any other basis than this of expedience; if they originated, or could have originated, in any other way; if actions have in themselves a moral character apart from, and nowise dependent on, their consequences—then all philosophy is a lie and reason a disorder of the mind.
In 1998 when the President of the United States was accused of immorality—allowing oral sex with a female intern in the White House—the Christian right cited the Bible and demanded not only Bill Clinton’s impeachment but also his resignation. However, Menachem Z. Rosensaft, a New York City lawyer, disagreed with the Bible-quoting sexual McCarthyites (Daily News, 10 October 1998). “Nathan was brutal in his denunciation of King David for his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and for sending her husband, Uriah, to his death,” he noted, then continued:
When David admitted his guilt, Nathan told him God would spare his life but his unborn child would die. Nonetheless, God allowed David to remain king. After King Ahab had contrived to murder Naboth the Jezreelite to steal his vineyard, the prophet Elijah cursed him. Indeed, an unusual aside in Scriptures (I King 21:25-26) notes that “there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord. . . . He acted most abominably.” Yet after Ahab rent his clothes, put on sackcloth, fasted and “walked about subdued,” God told Elijah, “Because [Ahab] has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring distaster in his lifetime.”
In other words, Rosensaft concluded, “the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors was well understood by the prophets. Disobeying God when the safety of the nation was at stake was the biblical equivalent of an impeachable offense. Mere human frailty or moral failing was not.” Or, as freethinkers often say, “Beauty and immorality are in the eye of the beholder.”
