Morality is a personal distinction of the right and wrong. What is moral to you might not be moral to a friend, neighbour or even to a family member. Morality is not however equated to ethics. In our readings, we have differentiated the two concepts. While morality is an individual distinction of just and unjust, ethics is a societal standard of right and wrong. For example, bowing to elderly is an ethical standard to most Asian communities but it isn’t in the western communities. An anti-feudal Korean may however find no moral ground for the idea of respect when bowing. Thus, what an individual discerns as moral of otherwise is not always equal to the societal perspective of ethics.
More often than not, morality being in the personal standard is over powered by ethical standards. This is always a conflict in area in various beliefs and traditions. A member of the Roman Catholic Church may find divorce moral in a situation where cycle of violence against the woman partner is present. However, the Church community will never agree to it as it is one of the core principles of Christians that those whom God united will only be physically separated by death.
Examining morality closely brings you to understand the concept of justice. In times when morality and ethics are in conflict, the question of what is just appears. Being a universal concept, the justness of a position or action should be distinguished by its universality. In order to determine the universality, every person should freely speak their opinions even if it means going against the ethical standards of their society. Today, there are already many conventions recognizing the universal rights of every human being. It is always good to refer to the documents in determining the justness of an action or opinion.
The Scarlet Letter revolves around a story of a woman during the Puritan era Boston. The woman’s name is Hester Prynne who was made to wear the scarlet letter A for having judged for adultery. She is married to an old Church minister who abandoned her for many years. She has to wear the scarlet letter for all men to see that she is a sinner in the Puritan way of life. Prynne concealed the identity of the man who is the father of her daughter because she wanted to spare him of the punishment. When her husband knew about the adultery, he demanded the identity of the man but she did not say anything. Her husband then worked on his own to find out who the person is in order to be punished as well. When he found out, he took the life of the person as a punishment and vengeance.
The novel is a critic to the Puritan way of life which is punitive, with extreme ethical and moral values. The Church and the Puritan society as a whole judge and punish immediately those who transgress. The actors of the novel being Puritan themselves may find the punishment moral particularly on the part of Prynne as she is guilty. However, if we look into the Christian’s moral principles, God is forgiving as long as the sinner repents from his sins. He accepts those who acknowledge their sins and starts doing away with it.
The Puritan’s intolerance is evident in the novel. Their judgement and punishment for the transgressors of their ethical values is beyond the principles of just. Prynne herself is not able to discern what is right and wrong as she feels too much guilt that she committed a shameful transgression. However, to bear the public stigma is unjust. It is not already moral for any person to suffer her whole life because of a sin that she have already repented. It is not moral as it destroys the dignity of a person and even the life of her daughter and her daughter’s daughter. Wearing that scarlet letter will imprint to the minds of Puritans that she and her lineage are sinners who have the capacity to commit adultery. This way of punishment will hinder the liberty of a person to live a dignified life.
Meanwhile, the debate today on the ethical grounds for divorce is still on-going with the persistent opposition of the conservative Church. They wanted restrictions of within in the divorce law in the United States in order to impose stricter policies with regards separation of married couples. For the Church, marriage is considered sacred that before couples engage into it, they shall come up with a well-thought decision. Moreover, conservative Churches believe that couples who were married with the blessing of God will only be separated by death. They hold on to this biblical principle in their firm opposition to easy divorce.
However, the morality of divorce should still be based on justice. The justness then of divorce is not applicable in all situations. There are serious instances where divorce is necessary to save a spouse from being violated of his or her rights. Divorce protects women suffering battering, economic neglect and other forms of violence against women. In these cases, it is immoral to prohibit their access to divorce.
Further, divorce today is moral to majority of American citizens as it facilitates a every individual’s right of choice. It may not be seen as moral from the conservative point of view but it is still one of the revolutionary policies that were crafted. The divorce is always criticized because of its impact to family particularly on the children’s welfare. However, if you look closely to the reasons why it has a devastating impact on children, it will always point out to conservative teachings of the Church about an ideal family. Children are taught that a family is composed of a mother, father and the children. Other than that idea, a family is dysfunctional. With this ethical principle being imprinted the social stands, the rigor of explaining the necessity of divorce is left in the hands of parents alone.
The Philippines is one of the staunch defenders of family which is evident with the dominance of Roman Catholic Church that despise even the idea of marital separation. One of the progressive women’s party called Gabriela in the said country attempted to file a divorce bill in the context of the growing domestic violence perpetrated by women’s spouse. This was however berated by the Roman Catholic Church together with their bandwagon of supporters questioning the ethical and moral grounds of the bill.
The grounds however that are being raised lack the context of human rights. It is only driven by a dogmatic belief about the sanctity of marriage and family disregarding the statistics of wives being beaten almost regularly by their husbands, of wives enduring the drunkenness of their unproductive husbands, of women who have to bear additional burden of child rearing after a day of toiling while their husbands lay soundly asleep and of many women silenced because of the ethical principles of the Church.
Works Cited
Religious Tolerance. “Morality.” Religioustolerance.org. Web. 20 Dec. 2014.
Fider, Carol Joy. “Moral and Ethical Values in The Scarlet Letter.” Institute of Christian Learning, 1999. Web. 20 Dec. 2014.
