Moral Relativity

Last night in the together4peace chat room, an interesting discussion took place concerning morality and its relativity. Do the concepts of good and evil exist outside of the realm of human perception? As usual, an excellent discussion ensued (albeit with a few minor disruptions). The basic ideas of this discussion (as I perceived them to be) are laid out below.

Is it possible for concepts like good and evil to exist outside of the human experience? For example, a twisted, blackened tree in the middle of a forest that is deemed an "evil" tree by the natives who live there. If the natives find reason to abandon the forest for better land or some equally mundane reason and human knowledge of the tree fades and eventually disappears, is the tree still evil? Does it still possess this metaphysical quality of evil, or is the catalyst of human interpretation necessary to give the tree such a quality? While I, positioned where I am within human experience, can never truly be certain of the answer to such a question, I'm going to venture to use my wonderful power of inference and experience to try and give an answer to this question.

The human brain is complex. While this is a terrible understatement, it gives me a jumping-off point to begin. Man and his amazing capacity for complex thought have revealed to him the limitations of his own understanding. While religion has attempted for thousands of years to satisfy the resulting hunger for explanation of that which is beyond our comprehension with mystical deities and beings. When we could not understand what caused the seasons to change or the sun to rise and set, we developed complex stories and divine spirits to explain away the invisible forces that drove these phenomena. Of course, humanity has come to find the true, physical reasons behind these events and thus come to discard Apollo with his sun chariot and Persephone and the forbidden pomegranates as logical explanations.

Any astute reader will immediately point out, "But those are physical phenomena! We're discussing metaphysical concepts such as good and evil!" While the distinction is applicable from a human perspective (we do not feel the rising and setting of the sun in the same way that we feel horror at an atrocity), one must step outside of these boundaries to note the similarities. A human itself is merely the blood and nerves and tissues and muscles that make up its mass. So if within our illusion of consciousness caused by the complex workings of our very physical brain we are presented with that feeling of horror, is it not at its root a physical event rather than a metaphysical one?

With that in mind we can begin to strike at the heart of the topic: the relativity of morality and other metaphysical events. The evil tree image invoked earlier can be applied here, taking into consideration three varying scenarios:

• Prima is a native living in the forest. He subconsciously relates the twisted, blackened nature of the tree to some bad experience he has had in the past. He consequently deems the tree evil in nature. The tree is therefore assigned the quality of "evil" in Prima's mind.
  

• Secunda is a native of a different, far more violent tribe living in the same forest. He likens the trees physical qualities to his defeated foes. Deeming this a positive omen for his tribe's continued victory in battle, the tree is therefore assigned the quality of "good" in Secunda's mind.
  

• Years later, the tree remains unchanged but both Prima and Secunda and their tribes have long since left the area, leaving it devoid of human comprehension. The physical aspects of the tree are not subject to the interpretation of human experience, therefore remain unassigned to any abstract qualities that the human brain might develop. The tree is thus neither "good" or "evil", merely existent.
  

In all three scenarios the tree has been subjected to a variation of human comprehension. Yet, in all three cases the result was different. For the tree to be proven "evil", the evil quality must withstand any variation in perception. For example, the physical constants of the tree itself, such as its twisted shape and blackened color, remain unchanged from example to example. The constant of a moral affiliation is physical, yes, but not in relation to the tree itself. The concept of an "evil" tree is the physical result of the workings of Prima's mind, just as the concept of a "good" tree is the physical result of the workings of Secunda's mind.

Thus, morality and similar concepts are proven not only to be physical rather than metaphysical, but also relative to the human perceiving them.