Relative morality
I know that all recidivist criminals have a morality. After all, child molesters are the lowest of the criminals by any viable ethic, because they have to be kept in a separate wing of the prison entirely or else they are killed. Therefore, some kind of ethics is viable for everybody, in which case, might we not speak legitimately of degrees of relativity of morality?
In this respect, I can pull out a tried-and-true example of relative morality that quite touches me even today. It happened a long time ago when I was studying at the university library, and in those days kept my wallet in my bag. Foolishly, I left my bag on a desk in the library while I went to the loo, and did not discover that my wallet had been stolen from the bag until I was leaving the library at the end of the night. I went to security to report it and they actually said that I had a good chance of recovering the original wallet--minus the cash, of course! Apparently, the thieves of those wallets take the items of value from them, but leave the items that would only be of personal value to you. These include things like ID and student travel concessions. Then they take the wallet and place it somewhere where it will get found by a third party, such as in a toilet block or between two books in the library. Even I found someone else's wallet this way, near the base of a toilet in one of the student buildings, and I handed it in to lost and found. A couple of months later, my own wallet was returned to me through the very same lost and found office because someone else had found it in a similar way.
What impressed me about this practice was just how unnecessary it was. If the thieves had only been concerned about obtaining some quick and easy money, they could have simply dumped the wallet in the trash after they had removed all its valuable contents. But they actually had enough empathy with the original owner to bother to leave it somewhere where it would be found and eventually returned to him.
I could explain their moral psychology by drawing a distinction between absolute and relative morality. An absolute morality was simply concerned with what was right or wrong absolutely. However, given an intention of committing an immoral act, a relative morality was concerned with being as moral as one could be, within the restrictions imposed by that original intention.
For example, the moral thing would have been simply not to have stolen the wallet in the first place. Hence, that is what an absolute morality would recommend. Given no immoral intention at all, therefore, there would be no question of what the relative morality would be to do in that situation; it would be the same as the absolute morality. However, there was a clear intention in this case of stealing someone's money--a clearly immoral act. If one had stolen a wallet, an absolute morality would require one to turn oneself in, along with the wallet with money intact--but this would hardly be practical given the presence of an immoral intention to start with. It would defeat the purpose of the original immoral intention, so it could not be taken seriously on grounds of self-consistency alone. But a relative morality, on the other hand, would still have some moral requirements of the thief that would not interfere with the thief's original immoral intentions. First, the thief could only take items of value from the wallet, not items that would only be valuable to the wallet's owner. Second, the thief would have to leave the wallet somewhere where it would be found, and eventually returned to the owner through lost and found. Note that the thief could not simply return the wallet himself to lost and found, or else they would take down his details and he could then get caught. But if he left the wallet for someone else to find and take to lost and found, then he would be safe from prosecution and his original immoral intention would be preserved.
Obviously, a relative morality is not pure morality, because it is completely allowing the presence of an immoral intention. But this does not make the relative morality simply immoral either, because it is enabling morality to exist where otherwise there would be none. Absolute immorality, after all, would have permitted the thief simply to have thrown away the wallet, or even kept non-valuable items from it. It was only the presence of relative morality that prevented this from happening. Hence, given the fact that something is already immoral, relative morality prevents it from being even worse than it otherwise would be, and is therefore deserving of praise, although not as much as absolute morality would be.
I assume that the thieves had this relative morality because they, like the victims, were fellow students. Hence, both belonged to a relatively close-knit group of people. This most likely allowed much greater feelings of empathy to exist on the part of the thief than would have been the case if the theft had simply occurred between two strangers in the outside world. Certainly if someone breaks into one's car on a public road and steals one's wallet from there, one is unlikely ever to see the wallet again, even if it contained any non-valuable items including ID.
In this respect, I can pull out a tried-and-true example of relative morality that quite touches me even today. It happened a long time ago when I was studying at the university library, and in those days kept my wallet in my bag. Foolishly, I left my bag on a desk in the library while I went to the loo, and did not discover that my wallet had been stolen from the bag until I was leaving the library at the end of the night. I went to security to report it and they actually said that I had a good chance of recovering the original wallet--minus the cash, of course! Apparently, the thieves of those wallets take the items of value from them, but leave the items that would only be of personal value to you. These include things like ID and student travel concessions. Then they take the wallet and place it somewhere where it will get found by a third party, such as in a toilet block or between two books in the library. Even I found someone else's wallet this way, near the base of a toilet in one of the student buildings, and I handed it in to lost and found. A couple of months later, my own wallet was returned to me through the very same lost and found office because someone else had found it in a similar way.
What impressed me about this practice was just how unnecessary it was. If the thieves had only been concerned about obtaining some quick and easy money, they could have simply dumped the wallet in the trash after they had removed all its valuable contents. But they actually had enough empathy with the original owner to bother to leave it somewhere where it would be found and eventually returned to him.
I could explain their moral psychology by drawing a distinction between absolute and relative morality. An absolute morality was simply concerned with what was right or wrong absolutely. However, given an intention of committing an immoral act, a relative morality was concerned with being as moral as one could be, within the restrictions imposed by that original intention.
For example, the moral thing would have been simply not to have stolen the wallet in the first place. Hence, that is what an absolute morality would recommend. Given no immoral intention at all, therefore, there would be no question of what the relative morality would be to do in that situation; it would be the same as the absolute morality. However, there was a clear intention in this case of stealing someone's money--a clearly immoral act. If one had stolen a wallet, an absolute morality would require one to turn oneself in, along with the wallet with money intact--but this would hardly be practical given the presence of an immoral intention to start with. It would defeat the purpose of the original immoral intention, so it could not be taken seriously on grounds of self-consistency alone. But a relative morality, on the other hand, would still have some moral requirements of the thief that would not interfere with the thief's original immoral intentions. First, the thief could only take items of value from the wallet, not items that would only be valuable to the wallet's owner. Second, the thief would have to leave the wallet somewhere where it would be found, and eventually returned to the owner through lost and found. Note that the thief could not simply return the wallet himself to lost and found, or else they would take down his details and he could then get caught. But if he left the wallet for someone else to find and take to lost and found, then he would be safe from prosecution and his original immoral intention would be preserved.
Obviously, a relative morality is not pure morality, because it is completely allowing the presence of an immoral intention. But this does not make the relative morality simply immoral either, because it is enabling morality to exist where otherwise there would be none. Absolute immorality, after all, would have permitted the thief simply to have thrown away the wallet, or even kept non-valuable items from it. It was only the presence of relative morality that prevented this from happening. Hence, given the fact that something is already immoral, relative morality prevents it from being even worse than it otherwise would be, and is therefore deserving of praise, although not as much as absolute morality would be.
I assume that the thieves had this relative morality because they, like the victims, were fellow students. Hence, both belonged to a relatively close-knit group of people. This most likely allowed much greater feelings of empathy to exist on the part of the thief than would have been the case if the theft had simply occurred between two strangers in the outside world. Certainly if someone breaks into one's car on a public road and steals one's wallet from there, one is unlikely ever to see the wallet again, even if it contained any non-valuable items including ID.
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