I was driving home with my five-year-old son the other day when he asked me a fairly simple question.
"Hey, Dad, can I have a granola bar when we get home?"
Unfortunately, I had to give him some disappointing news.
"No, I'm sorry. We're out of granola bars."
We'd established a rule that he could have one granola bar a day. But he'd been eating quite a few more than that, and the entire box was already gone.
Naturally, he had a solution.
"Well, can we go to the store and buy some more?"
Again, I had to say no. We'd already bought the granola bars, he'd eaten them faster than he was supposed to, and I wasn't about to make another trip to the store just to replace them.
Now, from my perspective, this was a perfectly reasonable parenting decision.
I can't let my son eat granola bars for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every snack in between. For one thing, that would get expensive pretty quickly. More than that, he needs a variety of foods to get the nutrients his growing body requires.
I'm trying to teach him moderation, help him develop healthy eating habits, and make sure he's getting what he needs.
But from his perspective, I had just done something terrible.
Granola bars are one of his favorite foods. He loves them. If I let him, he'd probably be perfectly happy eating them all day.
And here I was, his own father, telling him he couldn't have something that brought him so much joy.
It didn't matter how many times I explained my reasoning. He wasn't interested in the nutritional value of a balanced diet or the financial implications of maintaining an unlimited supply of granola bars.
He wanted a granola bar.
And I was refusing to give him one.
So, as five-year-olds sometimes do, he had a bit of a meltdown.
"You're a bad dad!"
"You're being so mean to me!"
"How could you do this?"
And the whole thing turned into a much bigger ordeal than I'd anticipated.
But the experience got me thinking about something that extends well beyond parenting.
From my perspective, I was doing something beneficial for my son. From his perspective, I was deliberately depriving him of something he loved.
We were experiencing the same situation, but our judgments of it were completely different.
And that raises a question I've been thinking about for a while.
What actually makes something good or bad?
More specifically, what happens when we stop trying to classify everything as good or bad and start examining the causes and effects of our actions instead?
The Problem With Good and Bad
Most of us grow up with a fairly straightforward understanding of morality.
Some things are good. Other things are bad.
We learn these categories from our parents, schools, communities, religions, and the people around us.
And there are plenty of examples where most of us would agree.
Murder is bad. Abuse is bad. Walking over to your neighbor's house and burning it down is generally something we can agree you shouldn't do.
On the other side, most of us would consider raising children in a safe and stable home to be good.
Providing people with food, shelter, and warmth would probably fall into that category as well.
But you'll notice that I keep using the phrase most of us.
That's because people don't agree on everything.
There are people who commit murder. People who abuse others. People who intentionally hurt those around them.
Of course, the fact that someone commits a harmful act doesn't necessarily mean they believe that act is morally good. People sometimes do things they know are wrong. They may also justify their behavior in ways that wouldn't make sense to anyone else.
Still, even when we broadly agree that something is wrong, disagreements emerge over the circumstances.
People disagree about what counts as justified violence, which forms of discipline constitute abuse, what obligations we have toward strangers, and how much personal freedom should be sacrificed for the welfare of others.
And these disagreements become even more complicated when we start examining less extreme situations.
Is it good to work sixty hours a week if doing so allows you to provide a comfortable home for your family?
What if those hours mean you rarely spend time with your children?
Is it good to give someone money when they're struggling financially?
What if that assistance unintentionally enables behavior that continues to hurt them?
We can make reasonable arguments in several directions because our judgments depend on which circumstances and consequences we're considering.
I think part of the problem is that we often try to treat good and bad as though they occupy opposite ends of a perfectly defined scale.
But I'm not convinced that morality works that way.
At least, not in the way we commonly talk about it.
The Temperature Problem
Consider something as ordinary as temperature.
We all understand the distinction between hot and cold. We experience temperatures every day, and we have instruments capable of measuring them with tremendous precision.
But our perception of those temperatures can vary dramatically.
I live in northern Utah, where I'm accustomed to fairly cold winters.
If I walk outside and it's 55 degrees Fahrenheit, I might think it's a little chilly. Maybe I'll throw on a light jacket, but I'm probably not going to be particularly uncomfortable.
Now imagine someone visiting from a much warmer climate.
They step outside into that same 55-degree weather and immediately start shivering. They might put on a heavy coat and wonder how anyone could possibly be comfortable.
We're experiencing the same temperature.
The thermometer hasn't changed.
But our reactions are different because our experiences, expectations, and preferences aren't identical.
Now, suppose we wanted to establish the perfect temperature.
Imagine sitting down with people from Utah, California, Arizona, and the Arctic and trying to agree on a temperature that isn't hot or cold.
Something perfectly neutral.
After a lengthy discussion, we all settle on 75 degrees.
Everyone agrees. We've found it. Seventy-five degrees is the perfect temperature.
Everything above that is hot, and everything below it is cold.
Problem solved.
Except, of course, it isn't.
What happens when the temperature increases to 75.1 degrees?
Is it suddenly hot?
Probably not. Most people wouldn't even notice the difference.
What about 75.5 degrees?
Again, hardly anyone would notice.
What if we increased it to 78 degrees?
Now someone might start getting uncomfortable.
"It's getting a little warm in here."
But the person sitting next to them might say, "What are you talking about? This is perfect."
Well, hang on.
If 78 degrees is perfect for one person, then our supposedly universal standard of 75 degrees has already fallen apart.
We could go the other direction, too.
Maybe someone thinks 74 degrees is too cold. Someone else might think 70 degrees is ideal.
And even if we managed to get everyone in the room to agree on one temperature, that wouldn't establish a universal dividing line between hot and cold.
It would simply establish a temperature that everyone in that particular room happened to find comfortable.
The temperature itself is measurable.
Our judgment of it is another matter.
And there's another complication.
Who decided that hot is bad and cold is good?
Maybe I prefer colder temperatures. Maybe someone else prefers the heat.
Even if we agree that a room is warm, we don't necessarily agree whether that's desirable.
So we have two different questions.
What is the temperature?
And how do we feel about that temperature?
One is a physical measurement. The other is an evaluation.
I think we regularly confuse these two kinds of questions when discussing morality.
Can We Measure Good and Bad?
When we describe something as good or bad, we're making a judgment about it.
That judgment might reflect our preferences, cultural expectations, personal experiences, religious beliefs, or concerns about the consequences.
But the judgment itself isn't the same thing as the event we're judging.
Going back to my son and his granola bars, we had a single situation with two different interpretations.
I believed that limiting his consumption would benefit him.
He believed I was making his life miserable.
Neither of those judgments changed what actually happened.
He wanted a granola bar. I refused to provide one. He became upset.
Those events occurred regardless of what either of us thought about them.
And this is where I start questioning the idea of an objective good.
I'm not convinced there's some universal moral temperature at which we can say, without any assumptions or qualifications, that everything on one side is good and everything on the other is bad.
Now, people who believe in objective morality have arguments for their position. Moral disagreement alone doesn't prove that objective moral truths cannot exist.
But it does reveal a difficulty with the way we often discuss morality.
We spend so much time arguing over labels that we sometimes neglect the actual consequences of the things we're labeling.
And I think there's a more useful place to begin.
Cause and effect.
Replace the Scale With a Chain of Events
Instead of imagining good and bad on opposite ends of a line, imagine a single event in the middle of a page.
That event is a cause.
Now imagine all the consequences that extend outward from it.
Those are the effects.
Some effects will be immediate. Others might not become apparent for years.
Some will influence only one person. Others may affect entire communities or future generations.
And many of those effects will produce additional causes, which produce even more effects.
We no longer have one straight line with good on one end and bad on the other.
We have an interconnected network of events.
Let's return to the temperature example.
Suppose the temperature outside increases.
That's our initial event.
What happens?
People might start wearing T-shirts instead of jackets. They may spend more time outside, turn on their air conditioners, drink more water, or look for shade.
A business selling ice cream might experience increased sales.
Someone who works outdoors might become uncomfortable or face an increased risk of heat exhaustion.
The same change in temperature can produce all these different consequences.
Is the increase in temperature good or bad?
Well, that depends on what we're evaluating.
But the effects still occur, regardless of whether anyone approves of them.
A person doesn't need to believe that warm weather is good for an increase in temperature to influence their behavior.
The cause produces effects.
And those effects can be examined without first deciding which moral label belongs to the cause.
Now let's apply the same reasoning to something more serious.
The Effects of a Stable Childhood
Suppose I raise my children in a stable household.
Let's say they grow up with adequate food, a safe place to live, supportive relationships, and parents who make an effort to meet their emotional and physical needs.
We could immediately label that situation as good.
And I think most of us would.
But what if we set the label aside for a moment and considered what might happen because of those circumstances?
Children raised in supportive environments may be more likely to develop confidence, healthy relationships, and the ability to navigate difficult situations.
They may have more opportunities to pursue education, build careers, and create satisfying lives for themselves.
Those are potential outcomes, not guarantees. No particular upbringing can determine everything about a person's future.
Still, the conditions in which a child grows up can influence the opportunities available to them and the way they approach the world.
And those effects don't necessarily stop with that child.
Imagine my son grows up in a household where disagreements are handled through conversation rather than intimidation.
He sees his parents resolve problems without violence. He learns that he can ask questions, express himself, and make mistakes without constantly fearing punishment.
As an adult, he might carry those experiences into his own relationships.
Perhaps he eventually has children and creates a similar environment for them.
His children may then carry some of those same habits into their adult lives.
You can begin to see how a decision made in one generation might influence the next, and then the next.
Something as ordinary as how I respond when my son makes a mistake could contribute to a pattern that extends well beyond my own lifetime.
Of course, that pattern might eventually change. One generation might adopt completely different values or make decisions that break the chain.
But the possibility of a lasting effect remains.
And none of this requires us to settle on a universal definition of goodness.
We can examine the circumstances, study the likely outcomes, and consider whether those are outcomes we want to encourage.
There's another complication here, though.
Even the language I just used contains value judgments.
I mentioned opportunities, satisfying lives, and successful careers.
But what exactly makes a career successful?
Someone might work the same job for forty years and consider that a wonderful accomplishment.
I might look at that situation and think they could have pursued more opportunities, advanced professionally, or challenged themselves in different ways.
Someone else might argue that the best life is one that involves as little paid employment as possible.
Who's right?
We might never agree on what a successful career looks like.
But we can still examine whether someone had access to education, whether their work provided financial stability, whether they experienced chronic stress, and whether they found satisfaction in what they were doing.
The circumstances and their consequences remain available for examination.
Our judgments about those consequences may differ.
When Harm Passes From One Generation to Another
Now let's look at the other side of the equation.
Imagine a household where children experience physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional manipulation, or financial abuse.
Maybe their parents constantly threaten them, withhold necessities, or make them feel responsible for the family's financial problems.
Maybe they grow up in an environment where they never feel safe.
We can label these things as bad, and I certainly would.
But again, consider the consequences.
A child living in a threatening environment may develop persistent fear, difficulty trusting others, or problems managing stress.
They may struggle to form healthy relationships later in life.
They might enter adulthood without the financial security or emotional support that other children were able to rely on.
Some people who experience abuse may eventually repeat behaviors they witnessed growing up.
And if they have children of their own, those behaviors can create another generation of people growing up under similar circumstances.
The cycle might continue until someone recognizes what's happening and makes an effort to change it.
That doesn't mean abuse inevitably produces abusive adults. Many survivors become caring, protective parents and deliberately reject the behavior they experienced.
But the fact that harm can have lasting effects is worth examining.
And those consequences exist whether the person causing the harm believes their behavior is justified or not.
Consider a parent who controls every dollar their adult child earns.
The parent might describe that behavior as responsible financial guidance.
Perhaps they believe they're teaching discipline or protecting their child from poor decisions.
But if the child becomes financially dependent, loses the ability to make independent choices, and struggles to establish a life outside the parent's control, those effects matter.
Calling the behavior loving doesn't eliminate those consequences.
The same applies to emotional manipulation.
Someone might say they're insulting another person for their own benefit, claiming they need to be tougher or more disciplined.
But if those insults produce fear, insecurity, and lasting emotional distress, the speaker's claimed intentions don't erase what happened.
And physical harm is an even clearer example.
If I deliberately injure someone, that person experiences the injury.
I might attempt to justify my actions. I might even convince myself that what I did was necessary.
The person I hurt might interpret the event differently.
But regardless of our disagreements, the injury still occurred.
There may be pain, medical expenses, lost work, damaged relationships, or lasting physical limitations.
Our moral judgments don't undo the consequences of our behavior.
This is the distinction I'm trying to make.
We don't need to reach an agreement about every philosophical question surrounding good and evil before we can recognize that our actions affect other people.
And if we want to make thoughtful decisions, those effects deserve our attention.
You're Also Living With the Effects of Other People's Choices
There's another aspect of cause and effect that I think is easy to overlook.
So far, I've been talking about the consequences of decisions we make.
But every one of us is also experiencing the consequences of decisions made by other people.
Think about all the influences that have contributed to who you are today.
Your parents made choices that affected your childhood.
Your grandparents made choices that influenced the circumstances your parents grew up in.
Your teachers, neighbors, friends, employers, and religious leaders have all made decisions that affected you in one way or another.
Some of those decisions may have been deliberate efforts to influence your life.
Others might have had effects that nobody anticipated.
Maybe a teacher encouraged you to pursue a subject you otherwise wouldn't have considered.
Maybe a friend introduced you to an opportunity that eventually changed your career.
Maybe someone treated you poorly when you were young, and that experience influenced how you approach relationships today.
And those people were influenced by others in much the same way.
Your parents had parents.
Your teachers had teachers.
Your friends grew up in families and communities that shaped their understanding of the world.
Everyone is making decisions within circumstances partly created by the decisions of other people.
And that's happening constantly.
We aren't isolated individuals making choices in a vacuum.
We're participants in an enormous network of causes and effects, influencing one another in ways we may never fully understand.
A single decision might affect one person, who then influences another, who eventually makes a decision that affects someone else entirely.
And at every stage, people are interpreting those experiences through their own perspectives.
One person might describe an experience as a blessing.
Another might describe that same event as a tragedy.
But the chain of events doesn't stop to consider which label is correct.
It continues.
Why We Tend to Agree About Morality Anyway
This brings us back to the thermometer.
If everyone has different preferences, why can we generally agree about what constitutes a comfortable temperature?
There are plenty of differences between us, but we also have a great deal in common.
We're human beings with similar biological needs.
We generally prefer environments where we can function without suffering from extreme heat or cold.
So, even though one person might prefer 68 degrees and another might prefer 78, we can often find a range that most people consider reasonably comfortable.
And I think something similar happens with morality.
We have different experiences, beliefs, and preferences, but we also share many of the same basic needs.
Most people want to feel safe.
Most people don't want to be physically injured.
Most people value relationships, personal autonomy, and the ability to pursue things that bring them satisfaction.
We generally don't want to live in communities where we're constantly afraid that our neighbors will attack us.
We want to be able to walk down the street without worrying that someone might shoot us.
We want our children to grow up in places where they can learn, develop relationships, and enjoy their lives.
And because so many of us have these shared interests, we develop social standards intended to protect them.
We establish laws against murder and assault.
We create institutions intended to resolve disputes.
We develop expectations about honesty, fairness, responsibility, and how we should treat one another.
I think of this as a kind of moral comfort range.
Not everyone agrees about its exact boundaries, but enough people share similar concerns that communities can develop reasonably consistent standards.
Of course, those standards aren't fixed.
They change over time.
Things that were once widely accepted may eventually become unacceptable.
Practices that one generation considers normal might be regarded very differently by the next.
And different societies can reach different conclusions about how people ought to live.
That doesn't mean a society's majority opinion automatically makes something right.
After all, a society can approve of a practice that causes tremendous suffering.
But it does help explain why moral expectations develop, why they differ, and why they sometimes change.
People respond to their circumstances, their experiences, and the consequences they believe certain behaviors produce.
As those circumstances change, their judgments may change as well.
Our collective understanding of morality isn't something that exists separately from human experience.
It's continuously shaped by the lives we're living and the effects we have on one another.
The Difference Between Disagreement and Consequences
There's a distinction I want to make here because I think it's easy for this argument to be misunderstood.
I'm not suggesting that nothing matters or that people should be free to do whatever they want simply because morality can be subjective.
Quite the opposite.
I think examining cause and effect gives us a much more practical way to understand why our decisions matter.
Suppose two people disagree about whether a particular action is morally acceptable.
One person believes that harsh physical punishment is an appropriate way to discipline children.
Another believes that deliberately inflicting pain on a child is unacceptable.
If we focus entirely on the words good and bad, we might spend the entire conversation arguing over moral authority, tradition, personal experience, or religious teachings.
But what happens if we examine the consequences?
Does physical punishment produce the behavior the parent wants?
What happens to the child's emotional well-being?
How does it affect their relationship with their parents?
Are there alternatives that produce the desired behavior without introducing unnecessary harm?
These are questions we can investigate.
The answers might not settle every philosophical disagreement, but they give us something more substantial to work with than competing declarations of what is right.
The same principle applies to financial exploitation.
A person might believe they're entitled to control their partner's money because they earn more.
Their partner might strongly disagree.
Rather than stopping at which person believes they're right, we can examine what that financial arrangement actually does.
Does one person lose the ability to access basic necessities?
Are they prevented from leaving the relationship?
Are they accumulating debt they didn't agree to?
Do they have any meaningful control over their own future?
Those circumstances provide us with reasons to challenge the behavior, regardless of how the controlling partner describes it.
And we can apply similar questions to decisions about education, healthcare, employment, religion, and public policy.
What caused this situation?
Who is affected?
What are the immediate consequences?
What might happen if those consequences continue?
And what alternatives are available?
That's not the end of moral reasoning. We still have to decide which outcomes we value and how to weigh competing interests.
But it's a much better starting point than assuming that calling something good or bad explains everything we need to know about it.
Intentions Matter, but They Aren't Everything
I think my son's granola bar situation illustrates another problem with the way we judge actions.
I had good intentions.
I wanted to make sure my son was eating properly, developing healthy habits, and learning to respect the limits we'd established.
But those intentions didn't prevent him from becoming upset.
My decision had consequences that he experienced as unpleasant.
And his reaction was real.
Now, I don't think that makes my decision wrong.
As a parent, I have to consider circumstances he doesn't yet fully understand.
Sometimes that means making decisions he dislikes.
But I also can't assume that every choice I make is beneficial simply because I believe I'm acting in his best interests.
What if I'd misunderstood the situation?
What if I were applying a rule that didn't make sense?
What if my efforts to teach discipline were producing unnecessary fear or resentment?
Those would be reasons to reconsider my approach.
And that's another advantage of thinking in terms of cause and effect.
It gives us a reason to examine our behavior even when we're convinced our intentions are good.
We can compare what we intended to accomplish with what actually happened.
If the outcome isn't what we wanted, we can reconsider the cause and try something different.
That requires a willingness to acknowledge that we can be mistaken.
And I think that's a healthier approach than assuming that our moral certainty automatically makes our behavior justified.
So, What Is Good?
I don't think there's a simple answer to that question.
And I'm not particularly convinced that we need one universal definition before we can begin making thoughtful decisions.
I can acknowledge that people disagree about morality while still caring deeply about the consequences of my actions.
I don't need to establish an absolute moral law to recognize that someone is suffering.
I don't need to prove that kindness is objectively good before deciding that I want to treat the people around me with compassion.
And I don't need everyone in the world to agree with my values before I can examine whether my decisions are producing the outcomes I intended.
My preferences and experiences influence what I consider good.
So do yours.
But there is still a world outside those preferences.
People can be hurt.
Relationships can be damaged.
Children can grow up feeling secure or afraid.
Communities can become more peaceful or more dangerous.
A decision made today might influence circumstances that continue long after we're gone.
Those effects deserve consideration whether we're religious, atheist, or somewhere in between.
I think we should be willing to ask more questions about our moral judgments.
When we call something good, what exactly are we saying?
That we enjoy it?
That it benefits us?
That it benefits other people?
That our community approves of it?
That our religion teaches it?
Or that we've examined the consequences and believe they produce outcomes worth pursuing?
Those aren't necessarily the same thing.
And treating them as though they're interchangeable can make moral discussions unnecessarily confusing.
Look Beyond the Label
I started thinking about all of this because my son wanted a granola bar.
From his perspective, I was being a terrible father.
From my perspective, I was doing what a responsible parent should do.
We weren't going to agree about that situation during the car ride.
But the disagreement itself didn't tell us very much about whether my decision was reasonable.
To understand that, we'd need to examine the circumstances and consequences.
What was he eating?
Why had I established the rule?
What was I trying to accomplish?
How did my decision affect him?
And was there a better way to handle the situation?
Those questions can tell us far more than simply arguing over whether I was being good or bad.
I think the same principle applies to practically every aspect of life.
We can spend enormous amounts of time assigning moral labels to the people and events around us.
But the labels themselves don't change what happened.
An injury doesn't disappear because the person who caused it believes they were justified.
An act of generosity doesn't stop helping someone because another person questions the giver's motives.
And the consequences of how we raise our children don't disappear when those children become adults.
They continue to influence the world around us.
So I want to spend less time thinking about morality as a scale where everything has to be placed somewhere between good and bad.
I'd rather start by understanding what causes things to happen and what those events produce.
Once we understand the consequences, we're in a much better position to decide whether those are outcomes we want.
That doesn't eliminate the complexity of morality.
If anything, it reveals just how complicated our decisions can be.
But it also makes the conversation more useful.
Instead of simply asking whether something is good or bad, we can begin with a different set of questions.
What happened? Why did it happen? Who was affected? And what might happen next?
Then we can decide what we think about it.
Because whatever moral label we choose, the effects of our actions will continue long after we've finished arguing about whether they were good or bad.
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