Presidents and morality

THE EDITOR, Madam:

The notion of morality was born from the conflict between right and wrong, not the other way around. So what morality should we choose? That of our faith, our parents, our neighbours, or one we create for ourselves as individuals? The answer is at least, the one that works.

It doesn’t matter if we make moral choices for a host of various reasons, religious or otherwise, if in doing so we forget where morality itself was born. Think about it; there were no churches around and no saviours. Morality was born with what worked and what didn’t. It is the child of both success and failure. What worked was right and what didn’t was wrong. That was the only kind of morality that mattered.

The problem was that the idea wound its way into what we thought other people’s behaviours should be and so, arrogantly, we chose to impose our belief systems on them. This sort of behaviour became and is still today is the source of most human conflicts.

“Don’t do that because it’s a sin” some might warn a president, for example, who has apparently exploited their position for their own personal gain. “Don’t do that, or you’ll go to jail” is likely a far more powerful “moral” warning as there is nothing questionable about outcomes. The question then becomes: If the president of the United States is guilty of influence, peddling and bribery, how can he be excused from the consequence of breaking the law by suggesting that he’s only violated a moral code? One path might involve the forgiveness of sin, but the other is a far more practical demonstration of morality; it is the road to prison.

ED MCCOY

Bokeelia, Florida