By Dr Dencio S Acop
The world seems to be freefalling. Confusion, anxiety, and hopelessness increasingly grip the world as the stability once known across most spheres of life has suddenly been turned upside down. World order has departed and disorder has taken over. While most countries signed up to the international rule of law and declaration of human rights following the Second World War, many countries today no longer honor this commitment. It is even more unfortunate that powerful nations like Russia and China have led the undermining of such noble commitments presenting their version of values as an alternative global order. But just what is this alternate order being prescribed by Russia and China to the world? Unexpectedly, even the United States under Donald Trump no longer honors its own commitments to the United Nations. The US today has been behaving like Russia and China believing that “might is right” once again. Russia invaded Ukraine while China has bullied the Philippines as precursor to invading Taiwan. Once the champion of the moral liberal order, Trump’s America has unilaterally attacked Iran and Venezuela and is poised to “invade” Greenland. Meanwhile, Americans are totally confused by the actions of their leader. While there is value to advancing the interests of national security, what good will it bring America ultimately if it is at the cost of core values Americans hold most dearly? Such values are enshrined in the American Constitution. Largely, they are Judeo-Christian moral values believing that the highest value is truth through fair dealing upholding the dignity of man. On the other hand, what core values do Russia and China practice and present as alternative models for the world to adopt? Russia and China are technically centralized authoritarian states whose sense of what is right or wrong in society is as dictated by the central government. In the case of China, values are as the Chinese Communist Party dictates. Using the analytical framework of free will, values, and the three domains of rightness or wrongness, this essay attempts to show the connections which explain the dynamics of these three elements.
The first element is free will. Each of us has free will. We’ve been developing this free will ever since we were born. Therefore, what free will we possess right now at this moment is borne and influenced by all our experiences and learnings through our lives. Whether we are aware of it or not, we choose to do some deed, write or say a word drawing from the accumulation of all knowledge and wisdom stored in our brains and felt in our hearts. This data in each of us grows as we move through our earthly journey. It interacts within our self as each new information is met by stored knowledge and gets processed. Individual free will is most vulnerable to all types of influences in young people as their brains are not yet fully developed. As we mature, we develop the capacity to be able to deal more fully with choices we encounter in life. Choices have consequences which could either be good or bad, whether in the short or long term. Like the lower animals, our basic instincts guide us as to the goodness or not of choices we need to make. Essentially, consequences that result in threatening our physical well-being influence us to choose decisions which prevent that from happening. Naturally, consequences that maximize benefits to our physical state motivate us to make choices that lead toward them. But, as creatures higher than animals, we humans possess more than just our physical bodies and instincts. Every human being has an individual soul. This soul gives man the capacity to use his free will not only to avoid physical harm for himself and others around him, but to choose decisions which advance not only the greater good but also evil throughout humanity and the world around him. Such decisions are influenced by what values work strongest in every individual soul. This brings us to our second element.
The second element is values. Every choice we make is influenced by values. Man is a rational being and therefore, every consequence from choices which maximize man’s highest good is a value. More than animals, man has learned that he has dignity, inalienable rights, and the capacity to earn eternal life for his soul. Mankind’s history will reveal that man has always had a thirst for a power beyond his own imperfections judging from his pagan worship of numerous gods before he stumbled upon the One and Only True God. Man’s highest values were revealed from this divine revelation, and the Incarnate Son of God became the model upon which man is to live out his earthly life transforming him towards the eternal life of his soul. Thus, moral life came to be –inspired by this One Solitary Life. At first, only a few individuals who believed, practiced this moral life. But as the centuries progressed, even the Roman Empire got converted spreading the moral life doctrine, along with its values, like wildfire. As every human good is not meant to be hoarded but shared to as many are willing to listen, Christianity and its values became adopted by countries everywhere through time. The moral order reached its peak when the One Nation Under God rose to be the world’s superpower following its global leadership during the Second World War. Even during that period, the shadow of the Great Satan already loomed through the horizon. While Hitler himself was the epitome of evil then, the Soviet Union and Communist China would rise since that time to develop into the greater evils they are now today. These two great nations are anti-Christ in their political value systems manifested in the ways they operate in the world. Paradoxically, Donald Trump is also too Machiavellian to not be considered an anti-Christ himself. The real question is, how did Trump rise to power in America in the first place? At least for the greater part of the Russian and Chinese populations, they have long been indoctrinated in amoral values. But not Americans! So, something must have happened somewhere to the evolution of moral values between the American people and their current leader who’s emerged. Does it have anything to do with backsliding too much into the shadow of the gray area? Which takes us to our final point.
Our last element is the three domains of rightness or wrongness – good, evil, and the gray area in between. While the two domains of good and evil seem clear enough, the third area — which is the gray — appears to blur the boundary between what is right and wrong. The great majority of secular laws adopted by various countries have traditionally gotten their inspiration from moral laws adapted to their cultures. The International Rule of Law, particularly the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights committed to by most countries is perhaps the widest formal agreement among nations of the world to protect the dignity of man and respect human life in all its aspects everywhere. The utilitarian ethical values enshrined in the agreement to perform the greatest good for the greatest number cannot be clearer. Of course, the opposite of the values contained in the agreement wherever they are perpetrated constitute clear violations of not only the international rule of law but also of the more compelling moral law. In short, actions by individuals, organizations, and nations which assault the dignity of man and disrespect human life and their derivatives would be nothing but pure evil. Individuals and families make up domestic societies which in turn form nations. The intricacies and dynamics of personal interactions between leaders and followers across domestic populations as well as international diplomacy and trade are characterized by the myriads of choices and decisions that ultimately result in short and long-term consequences for all stakeholders. Every choice and decision found in every level of hierarchy emanates from a source of values held by the individual who makes them. Whether part of a big or small organization, the exercise of free will is still held only by the individual who makes the call and is therefore the one accountable for it at the end of the day. Herein lies the third domain which is the gray area. It occurs when choices made also constitute violations of the legal or moral law even if they bring about the common good. Machiavellian ethics are often confronted by this philosophical and religious dilemma. While God allows evil to persist in the world to bring about a greater good, the same principle hardly pertains to man who is no god. At the end of the day, the most effective good man making use of his free will to bring about the greatest good for himself and his fellow man would be one, who would be capable of maximizing options for good, not only for the tree, but for the entire forest, so to speak. It is most certainly daunting. In fact, it may be impossible in many cases. Still, it would be the optimal option in the exercise of free will and is not impossible. In this 21st Century, we often lose sight of the lives of the Saints – men and women who’ve done it in the past. The world they left behind is still the same one we live in today. Only time has changed. Furthermore, we have conveniently forgotten the reason they did it. In the world today, we often say: “Heaven can wait.” Now, let us reflect on what’s just been said about how people in the world today, including us, exercise free will — for whom and for what?