“Do you dare,” asked William, “speak of alternative moralities?”
“I speak,” said Gunther, “of a morality to which there is no alternative, save disease and misery.”
“I do not understand,” said William.
“Moralities, in their own times,” said Gunther, “seem, in the optical illusion of the present, manifestations of eternal necessities. The moral revolutionary is as convinced of the justice of his position, its moral necessity, as is the defender of the threatened tradition of his. They join arms in the naivety of their dogmatisms. But in the trek of history these moralities, with their martyrs and their victims, appear as fashions, as transient expediencies, usually enlisted in the service of either defending an establishment or altering one, that a new establishment, that in which the moral revolutionaries will stand high, take its place.”
“You speak as a cynic,” said William.
“I think of myself as a realist,” said Gunther. “But consider, some morality is a necessary condition for the existence of social orders, as essential as access to drinking water or a supply of food. Moralities, to some extent, are selected for, as are visual sensors and prehensile appendages. Groups the members of which cannot rely on one another, groups without conviction, discipline ‘and courage, perish as groups, though their women are commonly spared to bear sons to the conquerors. Have you ever wondered why women, after some tears, yield themselves so readily to masters? It is because women desire, innately, to belong not to their equals but to their superiors, to the strongest, to the mighty, to the conquerors. Woman desires to submit; one cannot submit to an equal. The conqueror is not an equal; the woman is property to him; she submits; as a humiliated, submitted property she knows sensations that can never be experienced by her free sister, who, in her own frustrations, must be content to denounce her for her ecstasies. Women, too, wish to place their children in the future. The future belongs to the conquerors. Her own group lies already in the rubbish of the past; but the life stirring in her much-ravished body belongs to the tomorrow of the new conquerors; she, thus, chained at the heels of her new masters, turns gladly to the future.”
“If evolution selects for moralities,” said William, “that would tend to explain a considerable amount of the resemblance among moralities, similarities and continuities among them.”
“Surely,” said Gunther. “For example a group would not be likely to survive which permitted broadcast intragroup perfidy, disloyalty or slaughter. It is no surprise that these tenets are not recommended by historically tested moralities. Groups which might have adopted such tenets, if any groups had had so little sense, presumably left their bones in the jungles of history.”
“Yet,” said William, “apparently diverse moralities have escaped the filters of history.”
“Of course,” said Gunther. “There are many ways to survive. The sponge does so in one way, the crab in another, the antelope in another, the tiger in another.” He smiled. “That there is a morality is essential, not that there be a particular morality.”
“Is there any way to adjudicate between moralities?” asked William.
“Assuredly,” said Gunther. “Ruling classes have always managed this quite well. For them, the correct morality is the one which consolidates and enhances their own position and power.”
“Do you mean to suggest that adjudication can be only by means of armament?”
“No,” said Gunther. “One could draw straws or throw dice.”
“Can there not be a more rational decision procedure?” asked William.
“Rationality,” said Gunther, “is the instrument of the passions. Rationality, in itself, does not prescribe ends, only how they might be sought.”
“Surely it is rational to wish to survive,” said William.
“It is a fact that man wishes to survive. Rationality can help him attempt to do so. But man’s desire to survive does not logically imply that he should survive. `I wish to live’ does not logically imply `I should live’. Only the passions can give you that premise. No decision follows from logic alone. Logic is empty.”
“The British empiricist, David Hume, once said as much,” remarked William. “`According to reason alone I may as well prefer the destruction of the world to the pricking of my little finger.’ “
“The passions, of course,” said Gunther, “fortunately for us, are more clearly partisan. And I thought David Hume was a Scotsman.”
“He was,” said William.
“You referred to him as a British empiricist,” said Gunther.
“We always so refer to him,” said William.
“You are incurable imperialists at heart,” said Gunther. “Next you will be after Mach and Goethe.”
“We have already claimed Wittgenstein,” laughed William.
Hamilton understood little of this. It was the talk of men. She was a woman. And only a slave. She knelt; her head was to the stone; she wore a collar of shells, and claws, and strands of leather.
“There must be, however,” said William, “some intelligent way to adjudicate among competitive moralities.”
“One may choose criteria, said Gunther, “and evaluate them in virtue of these criteria.”
“But is there any way to adjudicate among criteria?” asked William.
“In virtue of other criteria,” smiled Gunther.
“But ultimately?” asked William.
“No,” said Gunther.
“Then there is no morality?” asked William.
“No,” said Gunther. “There must be a morality. It is a necessary condition of social order.”
“But there is no ultimate, rational vindication of a morality, and there can always be, at least logically, competitive moralities?”
“Yes,” said Gunther. “You see, William, a choice must be made. There must be a commitment. There must be a decision. You must choose your morality. And, if you are wise, you will choose, or pretend to choose, the morality of your time and place, or an approximation to it.”
“If one were wise,” said William, “one would not have looked into these issues.”
“The earth shakes beneath your feet?” asked Gunther.
“Yes,” said William.
“I shall tell you what my criteria are,” said Gunther, “though they are only one set among a possibly infinite number of alternative sets of criteria. I ask two questions of a morality. First, is it natural truly natural, compatible with and answering to the full needs of human animals, an animal genetically coded for the hunt, and, second, does it produce excitement, meaning, greatness, the swiftness of the blood, the brightest and fiercest fires of the glands and the intellect?”
“Your morality,” said William, “is dangerous; it is not one of pretense and leveling; it is a recipe for human greatness, an incitement to triumphs.”
“No other will lead to the stars,” said Gunther.
“What do you think of this, Hamilton?” asked William.
She trembled, her head down. A slave fears to enter into the conversation of free men. “Perhaps men are not meant for the stars,” whispered Hamilton.
Gunther seized her hair, jerked her forward and turned her body, exposing it to William. “Here is the enemy,” he said. “The female. If she can, she will defeat you; if she can she will reduce and destroy your dreams; when the mountains call it is she who will remind you of pressing duties; it is she who will keep you in the field with your hoe; should you stand on the beach, and be seen looking to sea, it is she who will recall you to your hearth; security and comfort to her exceed adventure, the chance of touching grandeur; she is ignorant of adventure, the meaning of man; her ears cannot hear the cry of a man’s heart!”