Last month I wrote about a murder trial that I observed in Dupage County, Illinois. Josh Matthews, who was found guilty in that case, inspired me to reflect on the question of morality in our society. Matthews defended himself in court and displayed a dishearteningly suspect moral code. His descriptions of his mother were unflattering, and I partially attributed his immorality to his abusive home life.
A former employer of Matthews’s mother has since contacted me to set the record straight. “Her honesty and morality were both unquestionable,” the employer, who wished to remain anonymous, said via e-mail. “She often spoke about her sons and her concern for their well-being and future.”
The employer rightly questioned the role of the father in the boy’s life, something that I skimmed over in my original post. It goes without saying that the plight of single-mothers is a difficult one, and that far too often fathers are held unaccountable for the lives of their children, especially in urban America.
In that first post, I wondered how we expected someone like Josh Matthews to develop a strong moral code. That question is just as pressing now, given this new characterization of his mother.
The conundrum of if and how we as a society are responsible for the moral education of our fellow citizens raises innumerable other questions. If we are, collectively, responsible, how do we address moral education? Is it solely a parental obligation? Surely this is unsatisfactory given cases like that of Matthews, where a single parent must assume the responsibility of providing for and educating an individual with little or no help and in sometimes dire circumstances.
Is it the responsibility of our public schools? This seems a plausible proposition, but also one that makes evident the gross inability of our struggling public schools to address such a daunting task. Is it possible that we lack the institutional infrastructure to address such a complex issue as moral education?
One could easily imagine a void of sorts left by the religious institutions of old. Short of getting into a larger discussion on the secularization of and role of religion in American culture, we can likely agree that morality—for better or worse—is typically more the focus of religious than secular institutions. Anyone inclined to suggest that introducing religious elements into public schools, however, would be guilty of prescribing a medicine with side effects far worse than the disease itself. Obviously religious organizations have the prerogative and responsibility to work for social justice and to promote such morals as they see fit, but it seems apparent that any broadly based societal solution would have to be irreligious.
It would be perhaps more plausible to suggest that secular, civic geared institutions such as Citizen Schools must necessarily be expanded in order to take the lead in moral education. The hermeneutic of civics may be imperfectly suited to the task of moral education, but there is an undeniable moral basis for civic engagement in our democracy. Attitudes such as equality, the worth of the individual, and personal responsibility are inseparable from a civic-minded approach to democracy. From a philosophical perspective, democracy only follows as a desirable form of government if one begins with some basic appreciation and respect for the ideas and rights of one’s fellow citizen. Whether this is explicit enough a connection to moral education so as to address the problem at hand is unclear.
A number of meta-questions are also raised by the morality question. Is this question condescending? Who are we, as academics, professionals, or volunteers, to presume to impart morals to the masses of our society? More importantly, how are the central morals necessary to a just and law abiding society to be determined?
The elephant in the room when discussing the moral edification of the populace is the sometimes-arbitrary nature of morality.
Surely we will run into trouble with a capital T if we embark on pinning down the essential American moral code. Worse still, we risk, once again, venturing into the religious realm. An intensely religious individual may find it difficult to see homosexuality as anything less than amoral (although many religious people, obviously, will feel differently), or may see such commonly looked-down-upon practices as suppression of women as essential to upholding a proper moral code. The inextricable relationship between religion and morality is indeed what makes public schools shy away from moral education.
In a society as pluralist and heterogeneous as ours, the question of morality is complicated by the vast, diverse, and often conflicting conceptions of the good and the just.
So the big question that follows from the morality question is this: should we even bother to try? Is the idea of morality too complex to address systemically? Is there no way to prevent the Josh Matthewses of the world from falling through the cracks?
Just as I cannot answer the morality question, I cannot answer these. I would put forth, though, that we should at least try. It is easy to focus solely on the multitudinous material problems that we face as a society. Surely, addressing these—improving our schools, reducing poverty, creating jobs—would provide a better environment for the Josh Matthewses. But I would argue that we hold a higher obligation: to at least attempt to address the morality question directly. We might not get answers, but more questions never hurt.
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