On Morality

Didion says in her essay On Morality that morality is a kind of loyalty and promise to the social code. She thinks that moral or immoral can only be defined in specific examples. At the beginning of the essay, she gives us an example how a nurse’s husband stayed with a boy’s body, who was killed in a car accident until the coroner arrived on the spot because he was afraid that the boy would be eaten by the coyotes. So morality is the promise to be responsible for other people in the society. In Didion’s opinion, we all have our loyalty and responsibility to the society. 

For me, morality is a set of principles, deciding which is good and which is evil. It is what most people assume to be right and also what the individuals believe to be right. The standards of judgment are often from laws, traditions or religious ethics. The most familiar morality teaching in Judaism is the Ten Commandment, which orbids people to murder, to rape, to steal or covet other people’s possession. I think the ten taboos are not only considered wrong in religion but also considered immoral all over the world. Besides the conventionalized codes, each individual has his or her own belief of morality. Many people believe it’s not moral if a married man sleep with other women or sleep with prostitutes. But to me, it is more of an immoral issue if a man has platonic relationship with other women than he sleeps with others. 

I agree with Didion that morality is the loyalty to the social code, which is normally acknowledged by the whole society. We can tell right from wrong by abiding by the established social norms. There is no denying that murder and steal are immoral deeds even if the doers were under force. I also agree that the word “morality” is often used as a gimmick by the politicians and the press to fool the public or even by the individuals to fool themselves. Morality is abused for either political reason or commercial profit and personal interest as well. As Didion puts in the essay “Of course we would all like to ‘believe’ in something, assuage our private guilts in public causes, like to lose our tiresome selves”, morality offers us an excuse to justify our behavior. 

However, I don’t think morality can only be defined in specific examples. Since there is universal acknowledgement that which is moral and which is not, we don’t need specific situations to define morality every time.Didion states that most cases have nothing to do with morality because there is no way to tell what is right and what is wrong, so we should leave morality out of life except certain situations. It’s true that no one is entitled to force his or her idea of morality upon others, but it’s also true that each individual has his or her own definition of morality and principles guiding their behavior. I believe the talk of morality can bring more benefits to the society. 

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