The perilous territory of morality……

Headline in one of the Sunday Papers, ‘Ethics Boy’.
It’s a sarcastic comment about David Cameron’s recent comments on the disappearance of moral boundaries in much of cultural, social and personal life, and our increasing reluctance to speak honestly about those areas of life where moral responsibility and personal standards of behaviour are essential to maintain a healthy social fabric.
It was reported in different papers with the usual mixture of dismissive sneering or sympathetic scepticism from other commentators, and with the observation made more than once, that the Conservative leader had ‘entered the perilous territory of morality’.

Which prompted an obvious question for a simple soul like myself. Shouldn’t those charged with formulating law, developing social policy, upholding the proper balance of human and economic interests, maintaining and contributing to good international relations be expected to ‘enter the perilous territory of morality’? Politics without ethics is power without the values that constrain and direct its executive function towards human flourishing. Politicians with no publicly stated values, or who are reluctant to express moral judgements as they see them, may be playing safe to protect their own interests; but as public servants we are surely entitled to expect that they are people of integrity, honesty, moral candour and ethical principle. And therefore that who they are should be reflected in what they say. Not perfect people, but people who themselves know (to use David Cameron’s everyday vocabulary), – the difference between right and wrong, good and evil, and that actions have consequences beyond the personal act itself for which the agent is in meaningful ways responsible and accountable.

I for one have no difficulty with politicians ‘entering the perilous territory of morality’; it’s preferable to the more lethally dangerous terrain of amorality. The difference between compassion and cruelty, love and hatred, kindness and callousness, generosity and greed, truth and deceit, faithfulness and betrayal, courtesy and in yer face ignorance – is a difference worth trying to maintain in any society that is to have a future that isn’t bleak and increasingly inhuman. Civil virtue, civic responsibility, respect for persons, community spirit, – all high sounding, even a bit boringly abstract. But a society that has no way of nurturing such inner resources of humanity and civility is going to become a comfortless collection of the selfish who are under siege to their own fears.

I don’t share the political principles of Conservatism; I struggle to share even some of the political principles and actions of the Labour government; I can find points of contact too with the Lib Dems, and believe in the Scottish nation without signing up to an SNP agenda for independence. But what I expect from politicians of whatever party, is a willingness to be found in ‘the perilous territory of morality’, and an unembarassed openness about the place of ethical values in the way we live our civic and social lives in this country. What makes David Cameron’s comments newsworthy, is the assumed political risk he has taken by raising the issue of our national morality; which simply highlights how little we expect moral comment from politicians who represent us, and how urgently we need to require it.

As a young friend often says at the end of a conversation, ‘Anyway, that’s what I think.!