In a Washington Post op-ed, Hugh Hewitt asks “Without shared moral values, how can we call Putin evil?” After listing a litany of Putin’s war crimes, Hewitt asks:
In an increasingly secular age, where can we ground the moral consciousness that supports the value judgment “evil”? More and more Americans find appeals to Judeo-Christian teaching unpersuasive.
Does Hewitt mean Judeo-Christian teachings like “love your enemy?” Unconditional forgiveness? “Turn the other cheek?” Grant love, forgiveness, and cheek-turning to a monster like Putin? No thanks.
Hewitt obviously clings to the religious dogma that morality comes from a supernatural realm. That belief therefore blinds him to the true source of the shared moral consciousness upon which we, as Americans, can support the value judgment of Putin as “evil.”
America does in fact have a unifying morality—the revolutionary morality strongly implicit in its Founding ideals. It’s best implied in the nation’s originating legal document, the Declaration of Independence—the equal, inalienable individual rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The social application of each individual’s right to the freedom to pursue one’s own personal happiness is best summed up by Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration. In a letter, Jefferson explained
Liberty then I would say that, in the whole plenitude of it’s extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will: but rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will, within the limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
This conception of liberty is derived from the Enlightenment philosophers, led by John Locke, the Founders’ most consulted philosopher. Locke and Jefferson established the right of the individual to actively pursue his own happiness in any way he deems appropriate so long as he respects the same right of all others.
This is a deeply pro-egoistic moral principle. It is also the moral code that underpins the Natural Rights principle that the United States of America is built on. Indeed, the pursuit of happiness is America. It is an individualistic morality. There is no America without it. It is a moral code derived scientifically from the study of man’s nature. This idea does have connection to Judeo-Christian teaching, Natural Law Theology. But that is an Enlightenment-inspired ideal. It is not a morality that rests upon or needs any religion. Regardless of whether or not one believes in a Godly origin of nature, it is an objective natural, not subjectives mystical, morality. If we’re looking to nature to inform our conception of morality, then the truths of the Declaration of Independence can just as easily stand even if all references to God, a Creator, and divine Providence are stripped from that document. The same goes for Christianity’s individualist orientation. Individual rights can be explained independently of the Christian version of individualism, the unique soul of every person, by reference to natural law.
For a long time, that uniquely American egoistic moral code was largely implicit in American ideals. On this point, America clashes with the Christian ethics in the most profound way. The pursuit of happiness simply does not jibe with the ethics of altruism and self-sacrifice at the core of Christian ethics. It would take until the 20th Century for a philosopher to explicitly identify and explain America’s moral code. The moral code implicit in these ideals was best identified and justified by the American philosopher Ayn Rand as “rational self-interest.” Rand explained the moral right to make the most of your own life, so long as you respect the same moral rights of all others, and proved it with reference to facts of reality. The Founders told us we have the political right. Rand told us we have the moral right. The American Revolution was completed.
Contra Hugh Hewitt, America does have a unifying moral code, and always has. It’s true that it seems to have been lost or abandoned by a large segment of America. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You won’t find (or rediscover) it in Judeo-Christian teaching. You will find it in our own Declaration of Independence. And the moral values embedded in that document is the basis of judging Vladimir Putin and any other collectivist monster. Putin is systematically denying countless Ukrainian and Russian people their rightful liberties to pursue their own happiness as they see fit. That is the basis for declaring Putin to be evil.
Related Reading:
America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson
Books to Aid in Understanding Ayn Rand's Rational Selfishness
The Mount Vernon Statement - Conservatism's Unilateral Moral Surrender
Where does Morality Come From?
The Roots of Morality: Primordial "Intuition" or Human Nature?
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