Motoring: A question we all must answer

We use the term “morality”, often like it is some absolute principle distinguishing right from wrong. Usually, it is not.

More often, moral codes and moral judgements are subjective, frequently polarised to a religious creed, a cultural tradition, or a political stance.

To some, homosexuality is a moral abomination. To others, it is a legitimate “option”. To some people, stoning an adulteress to death is a God-ordered and God-blessed conduct.

To others, even the mildest corporal punishment is a great wrong…but outright war can (sometimes) be okay.

Both pro-life and pro-choice lobbies insist they hold the moral high ground. Objects that are just animals and bricks to some people are sacred to others.

Though there are cultures that regard cattle rustling as lying somewhere between a sport and a divine right, theft is widely regarded as a wrong.

SOUL SEARCHING

The law defines it in 10 words: “dishonest appropriation of another’s property with intent to permanently deprive”. To legitimise theft, all you need is to change the first word. In business, the applied phrase is “competitive appropriation”.

Happily, through concepts such as human rights, we have international laws that template certain “moral” principles irrespective of individual cultures.

Also, there are elaborate sets of statute “laws” regulating individual conduct and social order, ranging from speed limits to building regulations to refuse disposal, wage levels, and so on.

For agnostics and others open-minded enough to consider there might still be something to find out, that priests and rabbis and gurus and ancient texts, which have gone through multiple translations and edits, might not have all the right answers, or all the answers right, there must be a constant search (probably without end) for some sort of universal principle that helps distinguish good conduct from bad conduct and right from wrong, irrespective of creed or culture or national political policy.

One such measure that some people find helpful is, in any situation, to ask: “If everybody did what I am now doing, would life – society, the system, the environment – still work well (safely, fairly, sustainably)?”.

It is a thought every road user – and administrator – might bear in mind. And not just on Sundays.