A Christian View of “What We Happen to Like”

The greatest evil I can think of is to turn one’s own preferences into moral imperatives.  Bertrand Russell preferred to have sex with lots of women; so he thought it morally wrong to restrain oneself to one woman.  Hitler did not like Jews; so he thought it morally right to kill them.  Most people at most times have believed both Russell and Hitler were wrong; these were obviously not instantiations of some universal moral principle.  Rather they pretended that their own personal preference was really a should that everyone on earth ought to follow.

Let’s not simply throw stones at Russell and Hitler, however.  We may not (God make it so) endorse the Holocaust, but the temptation constantly faces each of us on a smaller scale in our everyday lives.  Indeed, in our fallen state, it is our natural tendency to confuse our own personal tastes with cosmically ordained commands.  For example, I happen to personally care whether grizzly bears survive, because I think they are a particularly cool animal, wild and free and beautiful.  I don’t care a whit about brine shrimp, because I think they are brine shrimp.  So I support saving the bears, and I don’t really care if brine shrimp go the way of the dinosaurs.  And my first tendency is to assume that this is because there is some moral reason why bears are more important than shrimp; I first assume that my preference must be “right.”  Only once I think about it, I see that it isn’t grounded in morality at all.  In fact, I can’t think of a single moral reason in any scheme that would justify the belief that bears have more of a right to existence than shrimp.  It is strictly a personal preference I have for fuzzy wild animals to insect-like ugly crustaceans.  So I daren’t make my personal preference a moral imperative.  I don’t try to pretend that, in actual fact, it is morally better to save the bears than to save the shrimp.  It is something that resides, not in moral reality, but in me. 

Horrible evil begins when we try to justify our preferences with moral arguments. We should always be on guard against this in ourselves, for there is nothing so horrible as a preference masquerading as a universal imperative.  This masquerade has two extremely negative qualities.  First, it negates God’s intended plan of diversity.  God made people different for a reason: He knew when he made my wife and I that she would like (for example) trying new restaurants and I would like eating at Denny’s every single day.  That is part of His glorious scheme.  If I were to pretend that eating at Denny’s is morally better than eating at the next new restaurant, then I would in fact be annihilating (in theory if not in practice) the individual difference between Kathrene and I that God intended.  The temptation is admittedly strong for me to picket the Outback with signs reading “Support only American businesses: Kick out the Aussies!” and Olive Garden with signs reading “Down with Rome! Only sinners eat Italian.”  But it would be a tragedy.  For the implication of a moral imperative is that it is universal: And the implication of a universal is that everyone should be exactly alike.  On some things God did intend for everyone to be alike: For example, God intended everyone to love their neighbor, to not commit adultery, and so on.  But it is a great tragedy to negate those millions of little and intended individual differences which celebrate God’s love for each unique person.

Equally as importantly, masquerading our preferences as moral imperatives is the first sure mark of hell.  Hell’s desire is to devour everything; hell’s goal is purely egocentric.  And what could be more egocentric than assuming that just because you happen to like something, everyone else on earth should too?  I happen to like forests and so I want to preserve them.  I happen to dislike Richard Dawkins and would like to see him fired and branded as a lunatic.  But these are not moral values; these are simply my preferences.  When allowed, I vote to keep wildlands because I like them; but I respect other people who vote to keep factories because they like jobs better.  I simply like trees, and I offer no pretense of a reason for my vote other than that I’d like to keep some trees around so the Montana landscape continues to satisfy my own personal tastes.  (Also I like air to breathe).  If other people feel the same, fine; if they don’t, that’s also fine, too.  That is a matter of personal preferences, like voting whether or not to put a “Denny’s” on a street corner. 
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Of course, the astute person will realize that oftentimes morality and preferences overlap.  That is true.  This can take many forms.  Universal moral principles may, in fact, align themselves with my preferences.  God commands me to love my wife; in fact, this is easy because I happen to think my wife an angel.  It is so richly rewarding to love her that my preference is to obey the command.  On the other hand, universal moral principles may be irrelevant to my preferences, as in the case of choices about restaurants or likings for realistic versus impressionistic art.  However, very often – as must necessarily be the case in a fallen world – moral imperatives go against my preferences.  If Richard Dawkins came to my door, I’d like to kick him in the face.  But Jesus tells me to offer him food and drink and love and hospitality – that is the moral imperative.  My preference has gone wrong; the imperative corrects it. 

Sometimes, the relationship between a moral imperative and a personal preference may not be clear.  Take the trees.  Some readers doubtless thought, “yes, but you sell your preference short; we ought to be good stewards of our environment.”  And I agree.  But here is precisely the point.  Above all else, we must keep the two questions separate.  We must first realize that we prefer trees, that we’d prefer trees regardless what the moral imperative says, and then – and only then – should we consider the moral question.  We cannot start with the assumption that because we like trees it is right to preserve them.  That is quite literally hell: that is attempting to extend our personal preferences to the entire universe, not because they are really right, but just because they are our preferences.  That is the primary reason to shy away from the modern New Age movement (despite some positive qualities): The idea that we are all our own little gods that create our own moral reality– well, that is what creates Hitlers.  If we want to avoid that, in stark contrast we must be most skeptical of our moral arguments precisely when they support the thing we really want.  They may be right; but they had better be thoroughly tested, and we had better be ready to abandon the trees as soon as the moral imperative is reasonably called into question.

For morality is often harder than it seems.  Rarely is just one simple moral principle involved in a decision.  What if saving the trees meant that millions of people would go without shelter because of a lack of wood?  I may be fine personally (after all, my house’s trees have already been logged), and I would have my trees to look at – but it would perhaps kill thousands and make millions homeless.  What then?  (I am not arguing a particular case, but dealing with an obvious hypothetical.)  Catch the key point:  We cannot, we must not, simply try a one-sided argument that starts with our own preferences.  If we are going to ask the moral question, and of course I think we should, we should be aware of our own prejudices, not in order to defend them, but in order to guard against their intrusion.  They are walls, but not walls to be used as defense; they need to be climbed over.