The Need for Moral Universals in Democracy

Working societies?—?if they are to endure, grow, and cohere, if they are to prosper, hang together, and really mature?—?need moral universals. Moral universals are simply things that people believe everyone should have. In the UK, those things?—?those moral universals?—?are healthcare and media and welfare. In Germany, they are healthcare and media and welfare and higher education. And so on.

Moral universals anchor a society in a genuinely shared prosperity. Not just because they “spread the wealth”, though they do: because, more deeply, moral universals civilize people. They are what let people grow to become sane, humane, intelligent human beings. A person that is desperate for a meal will resort to whatever they must to feed their kids. A person constantly fed a stream of nonsense by Fox News will end up believing the earth is flat. Moral universals let people act morally, and acting morally is what the process of civilization is.

Democracy therefore depends on moral universals. It is probably fairly hard, in the scope of human history, to establish a democracy. But it is harder still to keep it going. A democracy requires, before it demands votes, sane, humane, civilized people to vote. A society that cannot create sane, humane, civilized people can therefore no more reasonably stay a democracy than a global economy can be powered by fossil fuels forever. At some point, without moral universals to create citizens worthy of the word, democracy runs out of gas. So: what really went wrong in America? Moral universals civilize people, but there aren’t any moral universals. The public goods universals result in educate, inform, train, school people, let them live long and peaceful lives. But Americans?—?whether it is today’s extremists or yesterday’s slave-auctioneers and owners?—?believe that moral universals are just a “cost”, a “tax”, and so forth. They have never seen?—?and still don’t see?—?the benefits: the civilizing process that democracy depends vitally on.