Key Insights for Understanding the Universal Morality

In my last blog, A Universal Morality: The Actual Missing Link for Humanity to Survive and Thrive, I offered the most succinct presentation I could muster of the missing True North that would repair humanity’s faulty moral compass. It engendered many great discussions in the comments, from which I have learned a lot.

In this blog, I want to zoom our microscope even further into the essence of this civilization-altering realization. I want to summarize 10 key insights around which I sense lingering confusion on this topic.

1. The Method is Not the Code

Universally Preferable Behavior: A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics (Stefan Molyneux) is a method for evaluating moral codes, not the code itself.

The code itself is the Non-Aggression Principle which states that:

“The initiation of the use of force against another is prohibited — other than in genuine defense of self, other or property.”

2. Logic is Objective, While Not Physical

An ethical code does not exist as measurable and tangible in the physical world, and yet it is, nonetheless, real. It is objective in the same way that reason and logic are. 2+2 = always 4. This is not an opinion, but a reflection of objective reality. So it is with moral theories, which need to be consistent, accurate, and valid in order to be true.

3. Protective vs. Proactive

A universal morality must be protective instead of proactive. It must establish a boundary that can be justifiably protected by force rather than condone some sort of coercive behavior to get somebody else to do something you want.

4. All People, Always, Everywhere

A universal morality must apply to all people at all times in all places. Any code which violates this absolute equality immediately disqualifies itself from being both true and viable for a thriving civilization.

5. Morals vs. Values

A moral code must be absolute and provide a delineation of what needs to be protected. This is in contrast to a value (generosity, humor, politeness), which is more likely an opinion of preferred behavior that cannot be morally enforced.

6. Moral Code vs. Self-Improvement

An ethical code is not about techniques for consciousness development (meditation, faith, self-improvement…). Those can be very wonderful and effective, but to mistake them for the needed moral code is, philosophically speaking, a “category error.”

7. Enlightened Rule vs. Everyone Enlightened

What we both desperately need and can realistically establish in a relatively short amount of time is an enlightened rule, around which humanity can organize… Rather than a wish or a demand for everyone to be enlightened — which is both unrealistic and unlikely in any reasonable amount of time.

8. NAP Requires “Stateless”

The natural extension of the Non-Aggression Principle from the individual into community is the discarding of government, the myth that some authoritarians should rule us. This is the point at which many newcomers’ brains feel like they’re going to explode… Because the NAP felt so good and natural but how in the world could we survive without the mommy and daddy state to protect and direct us? This is where the important work of exploring how it could and would work, as well as how we can get from here to there, must be elucidated.

9. Slavery is, by Definition, Immoral

We need to organize around the Non-Aggression Principle, not because it’s somebody’s good idea, or might make people happy, or prosperous… But because it is the right thing to do. Slavery needed to be ended in America because it was immoral, not because someone had figured out how to adjust the economy of picking cotton. The cotton gin was invented later and out of necessity after slavery was abolished because it was an immoral abomination — a lethal and disgusting aggression against individual freedom, sovereignty, health, and well-being. Our progeny will look back and thank us for ending the slavery of fake money and the myth of authoritarian rulership, the same way descendants of slaves look back with gratitude that that is no longer their fate.

10. Scientific Principles Match Moral Principles

In the new physics of the Unified Field, each individual toroidal energy field — whether it be at the scale of a proton, an atom, a blood cell, a human electromagnetic field, a solar system, a galaxy or a universe — can grow, thrive, and create if it has its space. Each toroidal field is a magnetic/electric circuit, that is “short-circuited” when it is restricted, broken, or confined too close to others. Whether it’s blood cells or humans, we can function in healthy collaboration if we are free as individuals to do our natural calling as long as we don’t violate otyhers. But if we are coerced, poisoned, deceived, or crushed, it can destroy our individual well-being as well as the thriving of the whole system of which we are part. This is a great example of how scientific principles and moral principles are connected and coherent. We live in a Uni-verse — ‘one song’ — where all is One and connected.

How awesome is it that behavior that is moral is actually what also works best!

This has been one of my most thrilling, relieving and inspiring realizations.

When we eliminate coercion — assault, theft, rape, murder, slavery — and instead organize our human relating around voluntary association and the non-initiation of force, what expands is security, happiness, prosperity, collaboration and harmony. It benefits both individuals and organizations.

A genuine free market unleashes our motivation and creativity, naturally revealing the most accurate value/pricing and therefore distribution of resources.

This seems to be yet another confirmation that Natural Law means doing what you said you would do and not aggressing on the person our property of others. “Live and let live,” using force only in true self-defense.

Let yourself imagine this world based on that principle!

What would that look like in education, media, economics, personal relations, commerce, dispute resolution and security?