Why do ralph and piggy decide to visit jack's camp

The Moral Life

2)

The Moral Life An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature

LOUIS P. POJMAN

New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

2000

Oxford University Press

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pojman, Louis P. The moral life : an introductory reader in ethics and literature /

Louis P. Pojman. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-19-512844-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ethics. I. Title.

BJ1025.P67 1999 170—dc21 98-46486

CIP

Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Dedicated to

my colleagues in the English department

United States Military Academy

West Point •

Where Philosophy and English

cross-fertilize each other

in a magnificent manner

k.

CONTENTS

Preface xiii

Introduction: On the Nature of Morality 1

PART I THE NATURE OF MORALITY: Good and Evil 5

1. What Is the Purpose of Morality? 7

William Golding / Lord of the Flies: A Moral Allegory 8 Louis P. Pojman / On the Nature and Purpose of Morality:

Reflections on William Golding's Lord of the Flies 32 Thomas Hobbes / On the State of Nature 41 Further Readings 53

2. Good and Evil 55

-iik--1-ferman Melville / Billy Budd (58 Fyodor Dostoevski / Why Is Theme 70

lliam Styron / Sophie's Choice 77 Philip Hallie / From Cruelty to Goodness 85 Stanley Berm / Wickedness 100 Friedrich Nietzsche / Beyond Good and Evil 121 Richard Taylor / On the Origin of Good and Evil 135 Further Readings 148

3. s Everything Relative? 149

erodotus / Custom Is King 150 uth Benedict / The Case for Moral Relativism 151

Louis P. Pojman / The Case Against Moral Relativism 160 Jean Bethke Elshtain / Judge Not? 186

vii

viii Contents

Henrick Ibsen / The Enemy of the People 196 Further Readings 218

PART II MORAL THEORIES AND MORAL CHARACTER 219

4. Utilitarianism 223

Seaman Holmes and the Longboat of the William Brown, Reported by John William Wallace 225

Jeremy Bentham / Classical Utilitarianism 227 Kai Nielsen / A Defense of Utilitarianism 233 Bernard Williams / Against Utilitarianism _249 Ursula Le Guin / The Ones Who Walk Away - from Omelas 262

Aldous Huxley / The Utilitarian Social Engineer and the Savage (from Brave New World) 269

Further Readings 291

5. Deontological Ethics 292

Soren Kierkegaard / On Duty 294 Immanuel Kant / The Moral Law 297 W. D. Ross / Intuitionism 318 The Golden Rule 333 Richard Whatley / A Critique of the Golden Rule 334 Ambrose Bierce / A Horseman in the Sky 337 - Charles Fried / The Evil of Lying 344 Thomas Nagel / Moral Luck 354 Further Readings 367

6. Virtue Ethics 368

Victor Hugo / The Bishop and the Candlesticks 370 Aristotle / Virtue Ethics 388 Bernard Mayo / Virtue and the Moral Life 405 Nathaniel Hawthorne / The Great Stone Face 411 William Frankena / A Critique of Virtue-Based

Ethical Systems 429 ,---Joriathan Bennett / The Conscience of

Huckleberry Finn 440 Further Readings 455

Contents ix

7. Ves and Vices 457

esus of Nazareth / The Sermon on the Mount; The Good Samaritan 458

Leo Tolstoy / How Much Land Does a Man Need? The Vice of Greed 462

Immanuel Kant / Jealousy, Malice, and Ingratitude 477 Martin Gansberg / Moral Cowardice 485

elen Keller: Three Days to See: Gratitude 489 ice Admiral James Stockdale / Courage and Endurance 499

Story of David and Bathsheba: Lust 514 Leo Tolstoy / Where Love Is, There Is God 518 Bertrand Russell / Reflections on Suffering 526 Charles Colson / The Volunteer at Auschwitz: Altruism 529 Further Readings 535

PART III MORAL ISSUES 537

8. Ethics and Egoism: Why Should We Be Moral? 539

Plato / The Ring of Gyges 541 James Rac e1s / Ethical Egoism 549

Ce Louis P. Pojman. Egoism, Self-Trite -re-Si; and Altr— w 7 Further Readings 566

9. Does Life Have Meaning? 568

Epicurus / Hedonism 570 Epictetus and Others / Stoic Catechism 577 Albert Camus / Life Is Absurd 586 Lois Hope Walker / Religion Gives Meaning to Life 594 Viktor Frankl / The Human Search for Meaning:

Reflections on Auschwitz 601 iddhartha Gautama, the Buddha / The Four Noble Truths 609

obert Nozick / The Experience Machine 615 urther Readings 618

10. Freedom, Autonomy, and Self -Respect 620

Martin Luther King, Jr. / I Have a Dream 621

x Contents

Stanley Milgram / An Experiment in Autonomy 625 Jean-Paul Sartre / Existentialism Is a Humanism 641 Thomas E. Hill, Jr. / Servility and Self-Respect 651 Further Readings 663

PART IV APPLIED ETHICS 665

11. Sex, Love, and Marriage 667

John. Barth / Pansexuality 668 10 Immanuel Kant / On the Place of Sex in

Human Existence 669 t The Vatican Declaration on Sexual Ethics 672 Et Raymond Angelo Belliotti / Sexual Intercourse Between

Consenting Adults Is Always Permissible 681 A Vincent Punzo / Sexual Intercourse Should Be

Confined to Marriage 690 4 Burton Leiser / Is Homosexuality Unnatural? 698 '

John McMurtry / Monogamy: A Critique 708 Michael D. Bayles / Marriage, Love, and Procreation:

A Critique of McMurtry 719 !- 0 Bonnie Steinbock / What's Wrong With Adulteg? 734

Hugh LaFollette / Licensing Parents 740 Further Readings 754

0. Is Abortion Morally Permissible? 756

John T. Noonan, Jr. / Abortion Is Not Morally Permissible 758

Mary Anne Warren / Abortion Is Morally Permissible 766 Jane English / The Moderate Position: Beyond the

Personhood Argument 775 Further Readings 787

13. Substance Abuse: Drugs and Alcohol 788

John Stuart Mill / On Liberty 790 Gore Vidal / Drugs Should Be Legalized 794 William Bennett / Drugs Should Not Be Legalized 797 Yoshida Kenko / On Drinking 803 Bonnie Steinbock / Drunk Driving 806 Further Readings 819

Contents xi

14. Our Duties to Animals 821

George Qrwell - / Shooting an Elephant 823 Immanuel Kant / We Have Only Indirect Duties

to Animals 830 ----PererSinger / Animal Liberation: All Animals

Are Equal 832 Carl Cohen / The Case Against Animal Rights 850 Mylan Engel, Jr. / The Immorality of Eating Meat 856 Further Readings 890

15.pur Duties to the Environment 891

Sophocles / On Mankind's Power over Nature 897 Robert Heilbroner / What Has Posterity Ever Done

for Me? 898 Garrett Hardin / The Tragedy of the Commons 903 David Watson / We All Live in Bhopal 921 William F. Baxter / People or Penguins: The Case for

Optimal Pollution 928 Further Readings 936

PREFACE

This is a book integrating literature with philosophy, while also cov- ering both classical and contemporary ethical theory and applied topics. Literature often highlights moral ideas, focusing on particu- lar people in their dilemmas, awakening our imagination to new possibilities, and enabling us to understand the moral life in fresh and creative ways. Good literature compels us to rethink and revise our everyday assumptions. It sets before us powerful particularities, which serve both as reinforcers and counterexamples to our sweep- ing principles. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin chal- lenged the assumptions of ante-bellum America and created great sympathy for the abolitionist cause. Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon and George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984 brought clearly home to millions the dangers of totalitarianism. Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment made us aware of the haunting voice of con- science that could overturn our best rationalization. William Gold- ing's Lord of the Flies is like a picture worth a thousand arguments on why we need morality. William Styron's Sophie's Choice faces us with the tragedy of moral choice when all options are unac- ceptable. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World highlights the paradox of freedom and welfare better than any political philosophy book I've ever read. Victor Hugo's bishop of Digne encountering Jean Valjean is a more eloquent statement on the virtuous person than anything ever published in professional journals on virtue ethics. Tolstoy's short stories on greed and love leave their indelible marks on our souls. And so it goes. Good literature is the contemporary equivalent of the parables of the New Testament. It makes the abstract concrete, brings it home to the heart, and forces us to think with innovative imagination.

Yet, acknowledging the element of truth in Kant's rejection of

xiv Preface

the empirical and the need for examples in ethics, particularity often is one-sided and passion-ridden. If it leaves us merely with gut reac- tions to a particular tragedy, it tends toward bias and irrationality. One needs cool-headed philosophical analysis to play a sturdy role in sorting out the ambiguities and ambivalences in literature, to abstract from particulars and universalize principles, to generate wide-ranging intellectual theories. To paraphrase Kant, the pas- sionate imagination of literature is blind without the cool head of philosophy, but the cool head of philosophy is sterile and as frigid as an iceberg without the passions of life, conveyed in literature.

I have endeavored to join forces, to unite literature and philos- ophy in the service of ethical understanding. Most sections of this work open with literary pieces.

This work is divided into four parts: I. The Nature of Morality. The central problems: What is moral-

ity? What is it for? What is its scope and force? I use Golding's Lord of the Flies, Melville's Billy Budd, and Styron's Sophie's Choice to highlight central themes, followed by philosophical essays that delve more systematically into the nature of morality, the nature of good and evil, and, relating to the scope and force of morality, moral relativism and objectivism. One might wonder why the latter issue comes in so soon, but there may be no issue more in dispute among young people today than this topic. Hence its prominence.

II. Moral Theories. The three classic ethical theories: utilitarian- ism, deontological ethics, and virtue ethics. Following the chapter on virtue ethics, I have included essays on particular virtues and vices, such as Tolstoy's "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" and "Where Love Is, There Is God," Kant's "Jealousy, Malice, and Ingrat- itude," Helen Keller's "Three Days to See," and Vice Admiral Stock- dale's "The World of Epictetus."

III. Moral Issues. Why be moral? What is the meaning of life? What is important about freedom, autonomy, and self-respect? I have included Plato's classic discussion of "The Ring of Gyges," James Rachels' exposition of ethical egoism, followed by my critique of eth- ical egoism, and writings by Epicurus, Epictetus, Camus, Frank', Bud- dha, Nozick, Sartre, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Thomas Hill.

N. Applied Ethics. Contemporary issues such as sex, love, and marriage; abortion; substance abuse; animal rights; and the envi- ronment. I have chosen issues that relate primarily to personal, rather than social, morality.

Preface xv

There are fifteen chapters and eighty-six articles in all. Short intro- ductions open each part and chapter. Each reading is introduced with an abstract and most essays conclude with questions for fur- ther reflection.

Many people have helped with this project. Robert Miller, Phi- losophy Editor at Oxford University Press, first proposed the idea of this anthology and gave enormous support to it. My colleagues in the English Department (an umbrella department for philosophy at West Point—we have seventeen philosophers in the English Department, which must be a record—plus a lot of English faculty who are addictive philosophers). This book is dedicated to all the members of my department, who are as collegial, honorable, and unpretentious colleagues as any I have had the pleasure of work- ing with. Captain Jowell Parks and Lieutenant Colonels Janice Hud- ley, Mike Owens, Al Bishop, and Mike Burke all made excellent suggestions along the way. Colonel Peter Stromberg, our head, has supported my work with wonderful generosity. Mylan Engel con- tributed an original essay on vegetarianism for this volume. Robert Audi, Margarita Levin, Robert van Wyk, Bonnie Steinbock, and sev- eral anonymous reviewers offered good advice, as did my wife, Trudy, who has been my deepest friend and inspiration for over thirty years.

United States Military Academy

L. P. P. West Point, N.Y.

January 1999

The Moral Life

Introduction On the Nature of Morality

Morality is about good and evil, and right and wrong action. What exactly are these? It is not always easy to say. Various religions and philosophies differ. What is the good? Religious people identify it with God, the source of all being and value. Plato thought the good was a transcendent, indefinable mystery, the source of all being and value. It is the absolute truth, higher even than God and discover- able by reason and intuition. Plato's follower, the Cambridge philoso- pher G. E. Moore, modified Plato's formula, omitting the transcen- dent dimension. The good, he thought, was a nonnatural, indefinable property like the color yellow. It was not the source of all reality, only of morality and aesthetic reality. On the other hand, Jeremy Ben- tham (chapter 4), William James, and Richard Taylor (chapter 2) deny there is anything mysterious or transcendent about goodness. They hold that the good is a definable, natural property. It refers to pleas- ure or the object of desire—good is a functional term which refers to the satisfaction of our desires, the pleasure we feel when satisfied. Variations on this basic hedonism appear in the literature; the human good for Mill consists not just in any kind of pleasure but in certain qualities of pleasure—a deep sense of well-being or happiness spread over a lifetime, not necessarily a life of ecstatic rapture, "but moments of such, in an existence made up of few and transitory pains, many and various pleasures, with a decided predominance of the active over the passive, and having as the foundation of the whole, not to expect more from life than it is capable of bestowing." 1

1John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863, chapter 2). Mill elaborates on his functional hedonism: "Happiness is a life in which exist free action (includ-

2 Introduction

For Nietzsche (chapter 2) goodness has nothing to do with pleasure or happiness ("Only the Englishman wants that") but power, the sense of dominating, of being in control, of being the alpha male in the pack. Goodness derives from the will to power that we all deeply crave. As such it is hierarchical and inegalitarian. But the envious mediocre masses detest this natural good, and so are determined to crush it. Morality, according to Nietzsche, is the herd's attempt to institutionalize mediocrity and protect the sheep from the more excellent wolves. The priests, both religious and secular moralizers, invent the soft moral virtues (pity, patience, peace, kindness, for- giveness, and tolerance) in order to protect themselves from their betters. Helping the worst off, redeeming the worthless, forgiving the criminal, maintaining the lives of sick bodies and diseased souls— the criminals, the stupid, and the mediocre. The ideas of good and evil must be understood in the clash between the superior overmen, and the priests who represent the masses. Right and wrong action, then, become a kind of politically correct ideology which, ironically, proves the Nietzschean point of the will to power. For the moralists invent good and evil in order to empower themselves and their clien- tele against their superior enemy.

Where does the truth lie in these matters? One thing everyone engaged in the debate recognizes: morality is both personal and social It is personal in that it has to do with how we should live our lives, what we should strive to become. It is social in that it recognizes that we are not hermits or gods, independent beings with no need for each other. We are centers of conscious striving, desire, who have wills of our own but have to adjust the pursuit of our goals in the light of other people's desires and interests. How to reconcile and adjust these twin forces, the personal and the social, is the central domain of ethics. It is the central concern of this anthology. Many works of ethics emphasize the broader areas of social policy or social ethics: just-war theory, economic relations, punishment, political arrangements, and institutional justice. There is a place for that. But what I want us to focus on in this work is the more personal dimension of ethics: its raison d'etre, its funda-

ing meaningful work), loving relations, and moral character, and in which the individual is not plagued by guilt and anxiety but is blessed with peace and satisfaction."

Introduction 3

mental purposes. We want to build from the ground up, for unless we get our foundations firmly laid, our structure will be in danger of capsizing. We will first study the nature of morality, beginning with a sizable selection from William Golding's moral allegory, Lord of the Flies. After a commentary, we will examine the philosophi- cal analogue to Golding's work, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, writ- ten three hundred years earlier. After this we raise one of the most crucial questions about morality: is it universally valid or only rel- ative to individual choice or one's culture?

In Part II we progress to the three classic moral theories: utili- tarianism, which aims at maximizing good consequences, usually defined in terms of pleasure or happiness; deontological ethics, which focuses on the individual act (its inherent rightness or wrong- ness) and the individual (his or her inherent dignity or value); and virtue ethics, which focuses on character, the kind of qualities we should inculcate, the kind of people we should become. But all of these theories recognize the role of virtue and vice—morally sig- nificant character traits. So in the fourth chapter of Part II we exam- ine several classic virtues and vices.

In Part III we consider theoretical issues that are implicit in our study of the nature of morality and moral theories, enlarging on what was said earlier. If the first two parts constituted the founda- tions and formal structure of moral theory, Part III deals with the materials in our building. First we examine the idea of the self in relation to others. Sometimes we can flout moral rules when it is in our perceived interest to do so. Should we do so? Why should we be moral whenever we can enhance personal gain by disre- garding morality's requirements? This problem is related to the sec- ond—what really is important about life, what, if anything, gives it meaning? Or is it merely "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing"? Here we look at various worldviews about the nature and destiny of humanity: Epicureanism, Stoicism, The- ism, Buddhism, Existentialism, and others. In chapter 10 we exam- ine the importance of freedom and autonomy.

Finally, in Part IV we examine seven practical moral issues. Con- tinuing our metaphor of the house, these constitute the inner dynam- ics, the plumbing, electricity, and furniture. In chapter 11 we exam- ine the meaning of human sexuality in relation to love and marriage. What does morality permit and forbid? Why is adultery wrong? Is monogamous marriage really a moral good? Should we need

4 Introduction

licenses to have children? Chapter 12 analyzes the difficult problem of abortion. In chapter 13 we consider the use and abuse of drugs and alcohol. Chapter 14 deals with our duties to animals and takes up the issue of vegetarianism. Chapter 15 considers our duty to the environment.

I have generally included readings which take opposing stands on the issues at hand, though sometimes I have simply included a reading to stimulate thinking, say on LaFollette's claim that the gov- ernment should require people to obtain a license to have children or Engel's claim that moral people already hold beliefs that com- mit them to being vegetarians. The main purpose of this work is to help you think through the difficult and exciting personal dimen- sions of what morality is about. Hence the use of literature to sup- plement philosophical analysis.

Literature particularizes general problems, brings them home to us, enlivening the imagination so that we see and feel nuances that are vital to resolving difficult moral issues, possibilities that we might not have considered in our abstract thinking about moral dilem- mas. But it is no substitute for philosophical analysis, so while many chapters begin with a literary work, the philosophical essays are where most of the necessary argument takes place.

Part I

The Nature of Morality Good and Evil

In this part of our work we consider three fundamental questions relating to morality: What is the purpose of morality? What are good and evil? Is morality essentially relative or are there objective moral truths? We begin each chapter with a literary selection and then go on to provide a philosophical analysis. Let us look briefly at the first of these questions.

What is the purpose of morality? What is morality for? It seems to have many purposes. These include enabling us to reach our goals in socially acceptable ways, enabling us to resolve conflicts of inter- ests fairly, developing certain kinds of positive character, promoting human happiness, enabling society to survive. You can probably think of others. But just as a picture is worth a thousand words, a good story may do more to illuminate the purpose of morality than a thousand disquisitions on the subject. So we begin our book with a sizable selection from William Golding's Lord of the Flies, a mod- ern allegory on the nature and purpose of morality. A group of British private school boys are marooned on an island; detached from the constraints of civilization, they turn into savages. Whether or not human nature is as depraved as Golding makes it out to be, the sig- nificance of the book lies in the fact that it illuminates the need for and purpose of ethical codes. After Golding's novel, I give an analy- sis on its meaning for our understanding of morality. This is followed by a selection from Thomas Hobbes's classic work Leviathan (1651),

6 The Nature of Morality

which, in seventeenth-century prose, poignantly sets forth a similar message to Golding's.

These three chapters center on the foundational problems of moral philosophy. It is imperative that we think clearly about them before we tackle normative theories and applied ethics. Let us turn now to one of the great moral allegories of our time, William Gold- ing's Lord of the Flies.

CHAPTER 1

What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Lord of the Flies A Moral Allegory

WILLIAM GOLDING

William Golding is considered one of the most profoundly insightful writers of our age. His works explore the human condition and the need for moral consciousness. In this work, published in 1954, Golding describes a situation in which the veneer of civilization is stripped away from chil- dren and a primordial evil emerges out of the depths of the human heart.

An indeterminate number of schoolboys, ranging in age from six to twelve, are cast adrift on an uninhabited island in the Pacific, after being evacuated from England during the next world war. They are forced to create their own social system. All begins well, as Ralph is democratically chosen leader of the group and appropriate rules are agreed upon: keep the fire going, use proper sanitation, obey proper authority and orderly procedures in the assembly. Bereft of modem technology, they must reinvent simple tools or use tools for innovative purposes: eyeglasses to focus the sun's light to start a fire, sticks for spears. They construct shelters and build a fire on the top of the mountain in order to sig- nal their presence to passing ships. They miss simple con- veniences: scissors to cut their long, knotty hair, tooth- brushes, sanitary facilities, and clothes.

For a while the constraints of civilized society prevent total chaos. While the youngest children, "littluns," are frightened and homesick, the older boys entertain them. They seem ready to make the best out of their fate, and recognize the necessity of substantive and procedural rules. Only he who has the white conch, the symbol of authority, may speak at an assembly, and the democratically chosen leader is in- vested with limited powers. Even the sadistic Roger, while taunting little Henry by throwing stones near him, manages to keep the stones from harming the child.

From Lord of the Flies by William Gerald Golding. Copyright 1954 by William Gerald Golding, renewed 1982. Used by permission of Faber and Faber and Coward-McCann, Inc., a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

8

Golding/Lord of the Flies 9

Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law. Roger's arm was con- ditioned by a civilization that knew nothing of him and was in ruins. (p. 78)

After some initial euphoria at being liberated from the adult world of constraints into an exciting world of fun in the sun, the children come up against the usual banes of social existence: filth, competition for power and status, neg- lect of social responsibility, failure of public policy, and esca- lating violence. Two boys, Ralph, the son of a naval officer, and Jack, the head choirboy, vie for leadership and a bitter rivalry emerges between them. As a compromise, a division of labor ensues in which Jack's choirboy hunters refuse to help Ralph and a few others in constructing shelters. Piggy, the bespectacled asthmatic, acts as the wise and rational counselor, and Simon, an epileptic, is portrayed as possess- ing special spiritual insight, but these qualities, rationality and spirituality, are tested by the Lord of the Flies. Free- loading soon becomes a common phenomenon as the ma- jority of children leave their tasks to play on the beach. San- itation becomes a problem, as the diarrheal children defecate all over the beach. Neglect of the fire causes it to burn out, which, in turn, results in failure to be rescued by a passing ship. We enter the novel as Jack returns with his choirboy hunters, having slain their first pig, only to be reprimanded by Ralph for not tending the fire.

The hunters were more silent now, but at this they buzzed again. Ralph flung back his hair. One arm pointed at the empty horizon. His voice was loud and savage, and struck them into silence.

"There was a ship." Jack, faced at once with too many awful implications, ducked

away from them. He laid a hand on the pig and drew his knife. Ralph brought his arm down, fist clenched, and his voice shook.

"There was a ship. Out there. You said you'd keep the fire going and you let it out!" He took a step towards Jack who turned and faced him.

10 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

"They might have seen us. We might have gone home—" This was too bitter for Piggy, who forgot his timidity in the agony

of his loss. He began to cry out, shrilly: "You and your blood, Jack Merridew! You and your hunting! We

might have gone home Ralph pushed Piggy on one side. "I was chief; and you were going to do what I said. You talk.

But you can't even build huts—then you go off hunting and let out the fire—"

He turned away, silent for a moment. Then his voice came again on a peak of feeling.

"There was a ship—" One of the smaller hunters began to wail. The dismal truth was

filtering through to everybody. Jack went very red as he hacked and pulled at the pig.

"The job was too much. We needed everyone." Ralph turned. "You could have had everyone when the shelters were finished.

But you had to hunt—" "We needed meat." Jack stood up as he said this, the bloodied knife in his hand.

The two boys faced each other. There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill; and there was the world of longing and baffled common-sense. Jack transferred the knife to his left hand and smudged blood over his forehead as he pushed down the plastered hair.

Piggy began again. "You didn't ought to have let that fire out. You said you'd keep

the smoke going This from Piggy, and the wails of agreement from some of the

hunters drove Jack to violence. The bolting look came into his blue eyes. He took a step, and able at last to hit someone, stuck his fist into Piggy's stomach. Piggy sat down with a grunt. Jack stood over him. His voice was vicious with humiliation.

"You would, would you? Fatty!" Ralph made a step forward and Jack smacked Piggy's head. Piggy's

glasses flew off and tinkled on the rocks. Piggy cried out in terror: "My specs!" He went crouching and feeling over the rocks but Simon, who

got there first, found them for him. Passions beat about Simon on the mountain-top with awful wings.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 11

"One side's broken." Piggy grabbed and put on the glasses. He looked malevolently

at Jack. "I got to have them specs. Now I only got one eye. Jus' you

wait—" Jack made a move towards Piggy who scrambled away till a

great rock lay between them. He thrust his head over the top and glared at Jack through his one flashing glass.

"Now I only got one eye. Just you wait Jack mimicked the whine and scramble. "Jus' you wait—yah!" Piggy and the parody were so funny that the hunters began to

laugh. Jack felt encouraged. He went on scrambling and the laugh- ter rose to a gale of hysteria. Unwillingly Ralph felt his lips twitch; he was angry with himself for giving way.

He muttered. "That was a dirty trick." Jack broke out of his gyration and stood facing Ralph. His words

came in a shout. "All right, all right!" He looked at Piggy, at the hunters, at Ralph. "I'm sorry. About the fire, I mean. There. I He drew himself up. "—I apologize." The buzz from the hunters was one of admiration at this hand-

some behaviour. Clearly they were of the opinion that Jack had done the decent thing, had put himself in the right by his gener- ous apology and Ralph, obscurely, in the wrong. They waited for an appropriately decent answer.

Yet Ralph's throat refused to pass one. He resented, as an addi- tion to Jack's misbehaviour, this verbal trick. The fire was dead, the ship was gone. Could they not see? Anger instead of decency passed his throat.

"That was a dirty trick." They were silent on the mountain-top while the opaque look

appeared in Jack's eyes and passed away. Ralph's final word was an ungracious mutter. "All right. Light the fire." With some positive action before them, a little of the tension

died. Ralph said no more, did nothing, stood looking down at the ashes round his feet. Jack was loud and active. He gave orders,

12 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

sang, whistled, threw remarks at the silent Ralph—remarks that did not need an answer, and therefore could not invite a snub; and still Ralph was silent. No one, not even Jack, would ask him to move and in the end they had to build the fire three yards away and in a place not really as convenient. So Ralph asserted his chief- tainship and could not have chosen a better way if he had thought for days. Against this weapon, so indefinable and so effective, Jack was powerless and raged without knowing why. By the time the pile was built, they were on different sides of a high barrier.

When they had dealt with the fire another crisis arose. Jack had no means of lighting it. Then to his surprise, Ralph went to Piggy and took the glasses from him. Not even Ralph knew how a link between him and Jack had been snapped and fastened elsewhere.

"I'll bring 'em back." "I'll come too." Piggy stood behind him, islanded in a sea of meaningless colour,

while Ralph knelt and focused the glossy spot. Instantly the fire was alight Piggy held out his hands and grabbed the glasses back.

Before these fantastically attractive flowers of violet and red and yellow, unkindness melted away. They became a circle of boys round a camp fire and even Piggy and Ralph were half-drawn in. Soon some of the boys were rushing down the slope for more wood while Jack hacked the pig. They tried holding the whole car- cass on a stake over the fire, but the stake burnt more quickly than the pig roasted. In the end they skewered bits of meat on branches and held them in the flames: and even then almost as much boy was roasted as meat.

Ralph dribbled. He meant to refuse meat but his past diet of fruit and nuts, with an odd crab or fish, gave him too little resistance. He accepted a piece of half-raw meat and gnawed it like a wolf.

Piggy spoke, also dribbling. "Aren't I having none?" Jack had meant to leave him in doubt, as an assertion of power;

but Piggy by advertising his omission made more cruelty necessary. "You didn't hunt." "No more did Ralph," said Piggy wetly, "nor Simon." He ampli-

fied. "There isn't more than a ha'porth of meat in a crab." Ralph stirred uneasily. Simon, sitting between the twins and

Piggy, wiped his mouth and shoved his piece of meat over the rocks to Piggy, who grabbed it. The twins giggled and Simon low- ered his face in shame.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 13

Then Jack leapt to his feet, slashed off a great hunk of meat, and flung it down at Simon's feet.

"Eat! Damn you!" He glared at Simon. "Take it!" He spun on his heel, centre of a bewildered circle of boys. "I got you meat!" Numberless and inexpressible frustrations combined to make his

rage elemental and awe-inspiring. "I painted my face—I stole up. Now you eat—all of you—and

I Slowly the silence on the mountain-top deepened till the click

of the fire and the soft hiss of roasting meat could be heard clearly. Jack looked round for understanding but found only respect. Ralph stood among the ashes of the signal fire, his hands full of meat, saying nothing.

Then at last Maurice broke the silence. He changed the subject to the only one that could bring the majority of them together.

"Where did you find the pig?" Roger pointed down the unfriendly side. "They were there—by the sea." Jack, recovering, could not bear to have his story told. He broke

in quickly. "We spread round. I crept, on hands and knees. The spears fell

out because they hadn't barbs on. The pig ran away and made an awful noise—"

"It turned back and ran into the circle, bleeding All the boys were talking at once, relieved and excited. "We closed in The first blow had paralysed its hind quarters, so then the cir-

cle could close in and beat and beat— "I cut the pig's throat The twins, still sharing their identical grin, jumped up and ran

round each other. Then the rest joined in, making pig-dying noises and shouting.

"One for his nob!" "Give him a fourpenny one!" Then Maurice pretended to be the pig and ran squealing into

the centre, and the hunters, circling still, pretended to beat him. As they danced, they sang.

"Kill the pig. Cut her throat. Bash her in."

14 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Ralph watched them, envious and resentful. Not till they flagged and the chant died away, did he speak.

"I'm calling an assembly." One by one, they halted, and stood watching him. "With the conch. I'm calling a meeting even if we have to go

on into the dark. Down on the platform. When I blow it. Now." He turned away and walked off, down the mountain.

[Things degenerate. The fire, the symbol of hope, is left unat- tended, and the conch, the symbol of orderly governance, is disdained by Jack's group. With the diminished symbols, Ralph's authority, and the rational procedures he stands for, become undermined. Frightened little Percival reports that he has seen the beast, a preternatural creature who bodes no good. Piggy dismisses such talk as superstitious and assures the group that life follows scientific laws that exclude the pre- ternatural. Ghosts and beasts can't exist. Why not?

"'Cos things wouldn't make sense. Houses an' streets, an' TV—they wouldn't work."

But Simon thinks differently. 'Maybe there is a beast." The assembly cried out savagely and Ralph stood up in

amazement. "You, Simon? You believe in this?" . . . "What I mean is . . . maybe it's only us." "Nuts" [responded] Piggy shocked out of decorum . . Simon became inarticulate in his effort to express

mankind's essential illness.

Eventually Jack succeeds in winning all but five of the boys to his cause. Only Simon, Piggy, and the twins, Sam and Eric (Samneric9, remain with Ralph in his project of keeping the fire burning and living by the rule of law, though Simon has gone off on a venture. The crowd has joined Jack and his hunters. Jack rules by charismatic might, livening their spir- its with pig hunts and orgies, but treating the littluns cruelly. Needing a magnifying glass to start their fire for the pig mast, three hunters, Jack, Roger, and Maurice, steal into Ralph and Piggy's shelter, attack Ralph and Piggy, and steal Piggy's glasses. We enter (chapter 11) where Ralph and his friends are grieving the loss of the glasses and the fire. Piggy, com-

Golding/Lord of the Flies 15

plains that without his glasses he can't see, and demands that they confront Jack with his crime. He speaks:I

"I got the conch. I'm going to that Jack Merridew an' tell him, I am." "You'll get hurt." "What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him what's what.

You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got."

Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim fig- ures. The shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him.

"I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favour. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses, I'm going to say— you got to!"

Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ralph's feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star.

At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair. "All right. I mean—you can try if you like. We'll go with you." "He'll be painted," said Sam, timidly. "You know how he'll

be—" "—he won't think much of us—" "—if he gets waxy we've had it " Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered something that

Simon had said to him once, by the rocks. "Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go." He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride. "You must carry it." "When we're ready I'll carry it—" Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his passionate

willingness to carry the conch against all odds. "—I don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to be led."

16 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Ralph put the conch back on the shining log. "We better eat and then get ready." They made their way to the devastated fruit trees. Piggy was

helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of the afternoon.

"We'll be like we were. We'll wash—" Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested. "But we bathe every day!" Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed. "We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long." "I've got both socks left in the shelter," said Eric, "so we could

pull them over our heads like caps, sort of." "We could find some stuff," said Piggy, "and tie your hair back." "Like a girl!" "No. 'Course not." "Then we must go as we are," said Ralph, "and they won't be

any better." Eric made a detaining gesture. "But they'll be painted! You know how it is—" The others nodded. They understood only too well the libera-

tion into savagery that the concealing paint brought. "Well, we won't be painted," said Ralph, "because we aren't sav-

ages." Samneric looked at each other. "All the same—" Ralph shouted. "No paint!" .. . They set off along the beach in formation. Ralph went first, limp-

ing a little, his spear carried over one shoulder. He saw things par- tially through the tremble of the heat haze over the flashing sands, and his own long hair and injuries. Behind him came the twins, wor- ried now for a while but full of unquenchable vitality. They said lit- tle but trailed the butts of their wooden spears; for Piggy had found, that looking down, shielding his tired sight from the sun, he could just see these moving along the sand. He walked between the trail- ing butts, therefore, the conch held carefully between his two hands. The boys made a compact little group that moved over the beach, four plate-like shadows dancing and mingling beneath them. There was no sign left of the storm, and the beach was swept clean like a blade that has been scoured. The sky and the mountain were at an

Golding/Lord of the Flies 17

immense distance, shimmering in the heat; and the reef was lifted by mirage, floating in a kind of silver pool half-way up the sky.

They passed the place where the tribe had danced. The charred sticks still lay on the rocks where the rain had quenched them but the sand by the water was smooth again. They passed this in silence. No one doubted that the tribe would be found at the Castle Rock and when they came in sight of it they stopped with one accord. The densest tangle on the island, a mass of twisted stems, black and green and impenetrable, lay on their left and tall grass swayed before them. Now Ralph went forward.

Here was the crushed grass where they had all lain when he had gone to prospect. There was the neck of land, the ledge skirt- ing the rock, up there were the red pinnacles.

Sam touched his arm. "Smoke." There was a tiny smudge of smoke wavering into the air on the

other side of the rock. "Some fire—I don't think." Ralph turned. "What are we hiding for?" He stepped through the screen of grass on to the little open

space that led to the narrow neck. "You two follow behind. I'll go first, then Piggy a pace behind

me. Keep your spears ready." Piggy peered anxiously into the luminous veil that hung between

him and the world. "Is it safe? Ain't there a cliff? I can hear the sea." "You keep right close to me." Ralph moved forward on to the neck. He kicked a stone and it

bounded into the water. Then the sea sucked down, revealing a red, weedy square forty feet beneath Ralph's left arm.

"Am I safe?" quavered Piggy. "I feel awful—" High above them from the pinnacles came a sudden shout and

then an imitation war-cry that was answered by a dozen voices from behind the rock.

"Give me the conch and stay still." "Halt! Who goes there?" Ralph bent back his head and glimpsed Roger's dark face at the

top. "You can see who I am!" he shouted. "Stop being silly!"

18 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

He put the conch to his lips and began to blow. Savages ap- peared, painted out of recognition, edging round the ledge towards the neck. They carried spears and disposed themselves to defend the entrance. Ralph went on blowing and ignored Piggy's terrors.

Roger was shouting. "You mind out—see?" At length Ralph took his lips away and paused to get his breath

back. His first words were a gasp, but audible. "—calling an assembly." The savages guarding the neck muttered among themselves but

made no motion. Ralph walked forwards a couple of steps. A voice whispered urgently behind him.

"Don't leave me, Ralph." "You kneel down," said Ralph sideways, "and wait till I come

back." He stood half-way along the neck and gazed at the savages intently.

Freed by the paint, they had tied their hair back and were more com- fortable than he was. Ralph made a resolution to tie his own back afterwards. Indeed he felt like telling them to wait and doing it there and then; but that was impossible. The savages sniggered a bit and one gestured at Ralph with his spear. High above, Roger took his hands off the lever and leaned out to see what was going on. The boys on the neck stood in a pool of their own shadow, diminished to shaggy heads. Piggy crouched, his back shapeless as a sack.

"I'm calling an assembly." Silence. Roger took up a small stone and flung it between the twins, aim-

ing to miss. They started and Sam only just kept his footing. Some source of power began to pulse in Roger's body.

Ralph spoke again, loudly. "I'm calling an assembly." He ran his eye over them. "Where's Jack?" The group of boys stirred and consulted. A painted face spoke

with the voice of Robert. "He's hunting. And he said we weren't to let you in." "I've come to see about the fire," said Ralph, "and about Piggy's

specs." The group in front of him shifted and laughter shivered outwards

from among them, light, excited laughter that went echoing among the tall rocks.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 19

A voice spoke from behind Ralph. "What do you want?" The twins made a bolt past Ralph and got between him and the

entry. He turned quickly. Jack, identifiable by personality and red hair, was advancing from the forest. A hunter crouched on either side. All three were masked in black and green. Behind them on the grass the headless and paunched body of a sow lay where they had dropped it.

Piggy wailed. "Ralph! Don't leave me!" With ludicrous care he embraced the rock, pressing himself to

it above the sucking sea. The sniggering of the savages became a loud derisive jeer.

Jack shouted above the noise. "You go away, Ralph. You keep to your end. This is my end

and my tribe. You leave me alone." The jeering died away. "You pinched Piggy's specs," said Ralph, breathlessly. "You've

got to give them back." "Got to? Who says?" Ralph's temper blazed out. "I say! You voted for me for Chief. Didn't you hear the conch?

You played a dirty trick—we'd have given you fire if you'd asked for it

The blood was flowing in his cheeks and the bunged-up eye throbbed.

"You could have had fire whenever you wanted. But you didn't. You came sneaking up like a thief and stole Piggy's glasses!"

"Say that again!" "Thief! Thief!" Piggy screamed. "Ralph! Mind me!" Jack made a rush and stabbed at Ralph's chest with his spear.

Ralph sensed the position of the weapon from the glimpse he caught of Jack's arm and put the thrust aside with his own butt. Then he brought the end round and caught Jack a stinger across the ear. They were chest to chest, breathing fiercely, pushing and glaring.

"Who's a thief?" "You are!" Jack wrenched free and swung at Ralph with his spear. By com-

mon consent they were using the spears as sabres now, no longer

20 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

daring the lethal points. The blow struck Ralph's spear and slid down, to fall agonizingly on his fingers. Then they were apart once more, their positions reversed, Jack towards the Castle Rock and Ralph on the outside towards the island.

Both boys were breathing very heavily. "Come on then—" "Come on—" Truculently they squared up to each other but kept just out of

fighting distance. "You come on and see what you get!" "You come on—" Piggy clutching the ground was trying to attract Ralph's atten-

tion. Ralph moved, bent down, kept a wary eye on Jack. "Ralph—remember what we came for. The fire. My specs." Ralph nodded. He relaxed his fighting muscles, stood easily and

grounded the butt of his spear. Jack watched him inscrutably through his paint. Ralph glanced up at the pinnacles, then towards the group of savages.

"Listen. We've come to say this. First you've got to give back Piggy's specs. If he hasn't got them he can't see. You aren't play- ing the game—"

The tribe of painted savages giggled and Ralph's mind faltered. He pushed his hair up and gazed at the green and black mask before him, trying to remember what Jack looked like.

Piggy whispered. "And the fire." "Oh yes. Then about the fire. I say this again. I've been saying

it ever since we dropped in." He held out his spear and pointed at the savages. "Your only hope is keeping a signal fire going as long as there's

light to see. Then maybe a ship '11 notice the smoke and come and rescue us and take us home. But without that smoke we've got to wait till some ship comes by accident. We might wait years; till we were old—"

The shivering, silvery, unreal laughter of the savages sprayed out and echoed away. A gust of rage shook Ralph. His voice cracked.

"Don't you understand, you painted fools? Sam, Eric, Piggy and me—we aren't enough. We tried to keep the fire going, but we couldn't. And then you, playing at hunting. . . . "

He pointed past them to where the trickle of smoke dispersed in the pearly air.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 21

"Look at that! Call that a signal fire? That's a cooking fire. Now you'll eat and there'll be no smoke. Don't you understand? There may be a ship out there—"

He paused, defeated by the silence and the painted anonymity of the group guarding the entry. The chief opened a pink mouth and addressed Samneric who were between him and his tribe.

"You two. Get back." No one answered him. The twins, puzzled, looked at each other;

while Piggy, reassured by the cessation of violence, stood up care- fully. Jack glanced back at Ralph and then at the twins.

"Grab them!" No one moved. Jack shouted angrily. "I said 'grab them'!" The painted group moved round Samneric nervously and

unhandily. Once more the silvery laughter scattered. Samneric protested out of the heart of civilization. "Oh, I say!" "—honestly!" Their spears were taken from them. "Tie them up!" Ralph cried out hopelessly against the black and green mask. "Jack!" "Go on. Tie them." Now the painted group felt the otherness of Samneric, felt the

power in their own hands. They felled the twins clumsily and excit- edly. Jack was inspired. He knew that Ralph would attempt a res- cue. He struck in a humming circle behind him and Ralph only just parried the blow. Beyond them the tribe and the twins were a loud and writhing heap. Piggy crouched again. Then the twins lay, aston- ished, and the tribe stood round them. Jack turned to Ralph and spoke between his teeth.

"See? They do what I want." There was silence again. The twins lay, inexpertly tied up, and

the tribe watched Ralph to see what he would do. He numbered them through his fringe, glimpsed the ineffectual smoke.

His temper broke. He screamed at Jack. "You're a beast and a swine and a bloody, bloody thief!" He charged. Jack, knowing this was the crisis, charged too. They met with a

jolt and bounced apart. Jack swung with his fist at Ralph and caught him on the ear. Ralph hit Jack in the stomach and made him grunt.

22 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Then they were facing each other again, panting and furious, but unnerved by each other's ferocity. They became aware of the noise that was the background to this fight, the steady shrill cheering of the tribe behind them.

Piggy's voice penetrated to Ralph. "Let me speak." He was standing in the dust of the fight, and as the tribe saw

his intention the shrill cheer changed to a steady booing. Piggy held up the conch and the booing sagged a little, then

came up again to strength. "I got the conch!" He shouted. "I tell you, I got the conch!" Surprisingly, there was silence now; the tribe were curious to

hear what amusing thing he might have to say. Silence and pause; but in the silence a curious air-noise, close

by Ralph's head. He gave it half his attention—and there it was again; a faint "Zup!" Someone was throwing stones: Roger was drop- ping them, his one hand still on the lever. Below him, Ralph was a shock of hair and Piggy a bag of fat.

"I got this to say. You're acting like a crowd of kids." The booing rose and died again as Piggy lifted the white, magic

shell. "Which is better—to be a pack of painted niggers like you are,

or to be sensible like Ralph is?" A great clamour rose among the savages. Piggy shouted again. "Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill?" Again the clamour and again—"Zup!" Ralph shouted against the noise. "Which is better, law and rescue, or hunting and breaking things

up?" Now Jack was yelling too and Ralph could no longer make him-

self heard. Jack had backed right against the tribe and they were a solid mass of menace that bristled with spears. The intention of a charge was forming among them; they were working up to it and the neck would be swept clear. Ralph stood facing them, a little to one side, his spear ready. By him stood Piggy still holding out the talis- man, the fragile, shining beauty of the shell. The storm of sound beat at them, an incantation of hatred. High overhead, Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all his weight on the lever.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 23

Ralph heard the great rock long before he saw it. He was aware of a jolt in the earth that came to him through the soles of his feet, and the breaking sound of stones at the top of the cliff. Then the monstrous red thing bounded across the neck and he flung him- self flat while the tribe shrieked.

The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee: the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist. Piggy, saying nothing, with no time for even a grunt, trav- elled through the air sideways from the rock, turning over as he went. The rock bounded twice and was lost in the forest. Piggy fell forty feet and landed on his back across that square, red rock in the sea. His head opened and stuff came out and turned red. Piggy's arms and legs twitched a bit, like a pig's after it has been killed. Then the sea breathed again in a long, slow sigh, the water boiled white and pink over the rock; and when it went, sucking back again, the body of Piggy was gone.

This time the silence was complete. Ralph's lips formed a word but no sound came.

Suddenly Jack bounded out from the tribe and began screaming wildly.

"See? See? That's what you'll get! I meant that! There isn't a tribe for you any more! The conch is gone—"

He ran forward, stooping. "I'm Chief!" Viciously, with full intention, he hurled his spear at Ralph. The

point tore the skin and flesh over Ralph's ribs, then sheared off and fell in the water. Ralph stumbled, feeling not pain but panic, and the tribe, screaming now like the Chief, began to advance. Another spear, a bent one that would not fly straight, went past his face and one fell from on high where Roger was. The twins lay hidden behind the tribe and the anonymous devils' faces swarmed across the neck. Ralph turned and ran. A great noise as of sea-gulls rose behind him. He obeyed an instinct that he did not know he possessed and swerved over the open space so that the spears went wide. He saw the head- less body of the sow and jumped in time. Then he was crashing through foliage and small boughs and was hidden by the forest.

The Chief stopped by the pig, turned and held up his hands. "Back! Back to the fort!" Presently the tribe returned noisily to the neck where Roger

joined them.

24 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

The Chief spoke to him angrily. "Why aren't you on watch?" Roger looked at him gravely. "I just came down—" The hangman's horror clung round him. The Chief said no more

to him but looked down at Samneric. "You got to join the tribe." "You lemme go—" "—and me." The Chief snatched one of the few spears that were left and

poked Sam in the ribs. "What d'you mean by it, eh?" said the Chief fiercely. "What d'you

mean by coming with spears? What d'you mean by not joining my tribe?"

The prodding became rhythmic. Sam yelled. "That's not the way." Roger edged past the Chief, only just avoiding pushing him with

his shoulder. The yelling ceased, and Samneric lay looking up in quiet terror. Roger advanced upon them as one wielding a name- less authority.

CRY OF THE HUNTERS

Ralph lay in a covert, wondering about his wounds. The bruised flesh was inches in diameter over his right ribs, with a swollen and bloody scar where the spear had hit him. His hair was full of dirt and tapped like the tendrils of a creeper. All over he was scratched and bruised from his flight through the forest. By the time his breath- ing was normal again, he had worked out that bathing these injuries would have to wait. How could you listen for naked feet if you were splashing in water? How could you be safe by the little stream or on the open beach?

Ralph listened. He was not really far from the Castle Rock, and during the first panic he had thought he heard sounds of pursuit. But the hunters had only sneaked into the fringes of the greenery, retrieving spears perhaps, and then had rushed back to the sunny rock as if terrified of the darkness under the leaves. He had even glimpsed one of them, striped brown, black, and red, and had judged that it was Bill. But really, thought Ralph, this was not Bill.

Golding/Lord of the Flies 25

This was a savage whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt.

The afternoon died away; the circular spots of sunlight moved steadily over green fronds and brown fibre but no sound came from behind the Rock. At last Ralph wormed out of the ferns and sneaked forward to the edge of that impenetrable thicket that fronted the neck of land. He peered with elaborate caution between branches at the edge and could see Robert sitting on guard at the top of the cliff. He held a spear in his left hand and was tossing up a pebble and catching it again with the right. Behind him a col- umn of smoke rose thickly, so that Ralph's nostrils flared and his mouth dribbled. He wiped his nose and mouth with the back of his hand and for the first time since the morning felt hungry. The tribe must be sitting round the gutted pig, watching the fat ooze and burn among the ashes. They would be intent.

Another figure, an unrecognizable one, appeared by Robert and gave him something, then turned and went back behind the rock. Robert laid his spear on the rock beside him and began to gnaw between his raised hands. So the feast was beginning and the watch- man had been given his portion.

Ralph saw that for the time being he was safe. He limped away through the fruit trees, drawn by the thought of the poor food yet bitter when he remembered the feast. Feast to-day, and then to- morrow. . . .

He argued unconvincingly that they would let him alone; per- haps even make an outlaw of him. But then the fatal unreasoning knowledge came to him again. The breaking of the conch and the deaths of Piggy and Simon lay over the island like a vapour. These painted savages would go further and further. Then there was that indefinable connection between himself and Jack; who therefore would never let him alone; never.

He paused, sun-flecked, holding up a bough, prepared to duck under it. A spasm of terror set him shaking and he cried aloud.

"No. They're not as bad as that. It was an accident." He ducked under the bough, ran clumsily, then stopped and

listened. He came to the smashed acres of fruit and ate greedily. He saw

two littluns and, not having any idea of his own appearance, won- dered why they screamed and ran.

When he had eaten he went towards the beach. The sunlight

26 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

was slanting now into the palms by the wrecked shelter. There was the platform and the pool. The best thing to do was to ignore this leaden feeling about the heart and rely on their common sense, their daylight sanity. Now that the tribe had eaten, the thing to do was to try again. And anyway, he couldn't stay here all night in an empty shelter by the deserted platform. His flesh crept and he shiv- ered in the evening sun. No fire; no smoke; no rescue.

(Jack launches a murderous manhunt for Ralph, who hides in the forest. After a time, he hears "a curious trickling sound and then a louder crepitation as if someone were unwrap- ping great sheets of cellophane." Smoke was flowing through the branches "in white and yellow wisps." Jack had started a forest fire in order to smoke Ralph out into the open. What could he do? He was beginning to panic. He might find a place away from the fire and climb a tree or he could try to burst their line. A third idea was to find a hiding place some- where and hope his pursuers would pass by him.]

A nearer cry stood him on his feet and immediately he was away again, running fast among thorns and brambles. Suddenly he blun- dered into the open, found himself again in that open space—and there was the fathom-wide grin of the skull, no longer ridiculing a deep blue patch of sky but jeering up into a blanket of smoke. Then Ralph was running beneath trees, with the grumble of the forest explained. They had smoked him out and set the island on fire.

Hide was better than a tree because you had a chance of break- ing the line if you were discovered.

Hide, then. He wondered if a pig would agree, and grimaced at nothing.

Find the deepest thicket, the darkest hole on the island, and creep in. Now, as he ran, he peered about him. Bars and splashes of sun- light flitted over him and sweat made glistening streaks on his dirty body. The cries were far now, and faint.

At last he found what seemed to him the right place, though the decision was desperate. Here, bushes and a wild tangle of creeper made a mat that kept out all the light of the sun. Beneath it was

Golding/Lord of the Flies 27

a space, perhaps a foot high, though it was pierced everywhere by parallel and rising stems. If you wormed into the middle of that you would be five yards from the edge, and hidden, unless the savage chose to lie down and look for you; and even then, you would be in darkness—and if the worst happened and he saw you, then you had a chance to burst out at him, fling the whole line out of step and double back.

Cautiously, his stick trailing behind him, Ralph wormed between the rising stems. When he reached the middle of the mat he lay and listened.

The fire was a big one and the drum-roll that he had thought was left so far behind was nearer. Couldn't a fire out-run a galloping horse? He could see the sun-splashed ground over an area of per- haps fifty yards from where he lay: and as he watched, the sunlight in every patch blinked at him. This was so like the curtain that flapped in his brain that for a moment he thought the blinking was inside him. But then the patches blinked more rapidly, dulled and went out, so that he saw that a great heaviness of smoke lay between the island and the sun.

If anyone peered under the bushes and chanced to glimpse human flesh it might be Samneric who would pretend not to see and say nothing. He laid his cheek against the chocolate-coloured earth, licked his dry lips and closed his eyes. Under the thicket, the earth was vibrating very slightly; or perhaps there was a sound beneath the obvious thunder of the fire and scribbled ululations that was too low to hear.

Someone cried out. Ralph jerked his cheek off the earth and looked into the dulled light. They must be near now, he thought, and his chest began to thump. Hide, break the line, climb a tree—which was the best after all? The trouble was you only had one chance.

Now the fire was nearer; those volleying shots were great limbs, trunks even, bursting. The fools! The fools! The fire must be almost at the fruit trees—what would they eat to-morrow?

Ralph stirred restlessly in his narrow bed. One chanced nothing! What could they do? Beat him? So what? Kill him? A stick sharp- ened at both ends.

The cries, suddenly nearer, jerked him up. He could see a striped savage moving hastily out of a green tangle, and coming towards the mat where he hid, a savage who carried a spear. Ralph gripped his fingers into the earth. Be ready now, in case.

28 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Ralph fumbled to hold his spear so that it was point foremost; and now he saw that the stick was sharpened at both ends.

The savage stopped fifteen yards away and uttered his cry. Perhaps he can hear my heart over the noises of the fire. Don't

scream. Get ready. The savage moved forward so that you could only see him from

the waist down. That was the butt of his spear. Now you could see him from the knee down. Don't scream.

A herd of pigs came squealing out of the greenery behind the savage and rushed away into the forest. Birds were screaming, mice shrieking, and a little hopping thing came under the mat and cowered.

Five yards away the savage stopped, standing right by the thicket, and cried out. Ralph drew his feet up and crouched. The stake was in his hands, the stake sharpened at both ends, the stake that vibrated so wildly, that grew long, short, light, heavy, light again.

The ululation spread from shore to shore. The savage knelt down by the edge of the thicket, and there were lights flickering in the forest behind him. You could see a knee disturb the mould. Now the other. Two hands. A spear.

A face. The savage peered into the obscurity beneath the thicket. You

could tell that he saw light on this side and on that, but not in the middle—there. In the middle was a blob of dark and the savage wrinkled up his face, trying to decipher the darkness.

The seconds lengthened. Ralph was looking straight into the sav- age's eyes.

Don't scream. You'll get back. Now he's seen you. He's making sure. A stick sharpened. Ralph screamed, a scream of fright and anger and desperation. His

legs straightened, the screams became continuous and foaming. He shot forward, burst the thicket, was in the open, screaming, snarling, bloody. He swung the stake and the savage tumbled over; but there were others coming towards him, crying out. He swerved as a spear flew past and then was silent, running. All at once the lights flicker- ing ahead of him merged together, the roar of the forest rose to thun- der and a tall bush directly in his path burst into a great fan-shaped flame. He swung to the right, running desperately fast, with the heat beating on his left side and the fire racing forward like a tide. The ulu-

Golding/Lord of the Flies 29

lation rose behind him and spread along, a series of short sharp cries, the sighting call. A brown figure showed up at his right and fell away. They were all running, all crying out madly. He could hear them crash- ing in the undergrowth and on the left was the hot, bright thunder of the fire. He forgot his wounds, his hunger and thirst, and became fear; hopeless fear on flying feet, rushing through the forest towards the open beach. Spots jumped before his eyes and turned into red circles that expanded quickly till they passed out of sight. Below him, some- one's legs were getting tired and the desperate ululation advanced like a jagged fringe of menace and was almost overhead.

He stumbled over a root and the cry that pursued him rose even higher. He saw a shelter burst into flames and the fire flapped at his right shoulder and there was the glitter of water. Then he was down, rolling over and over in the warm sand, crouching with arm up to ward off, trying to cry for mercy.

He staggered to his feet, tensed for more terrors, and looked up at a huge peaked cap. It was a white-topped cap, and above the green shade of the peak was a crown, an anchor, gold foliage. He saw white drill, epaulettes, a revolver, a row of gilt buttons down the front of a uniform.

A naval officer stood on the sand, looking down at Ralph in wary astonishment. On the beach behind him was a cutter, her bows hauled up and held by two ratings. In the stern-sheets another rating held a sub-machine gun.

The ululation faltered and died away. The officer looked at Ralph doubtfully for a moment, then took

his hand away from the butt of the revolver. "Hullo." Squirming a little, conscious of his filthy appearance, Ralph an-

swered shyly. "Hullo." The officer nodded, as if a question had been answered. "Are there any adults—any grown-ups with you?" Dumbly, Ralph shook his head. He turned a half-pace on the

sand. A semicircle of little boys, their bodies streaked with coloured clay, sharp sticks in their hands, were standing on the beach mak- ing no noise at all.

"Fun and games," said the officer. The fire reached the coco-nut palms by the beach and swal-

lowed them noisily. A flame, seemingly detached, swung like an

30 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

acrobat and licked up the palm heads on the platform. The sky was black.

The officer grinned cheerfully at Ralph. "We saw your smoke. What have you been doing? Having a war

or something?" Ralph nodded. The officer inspected the little scarecrow in front of him. The

kid needed a bath, a hair-cut, a nose-wipe and a good deal of oint- ment.

"Nobody killed, I hope? Any dead bodies?" "Only two. And they've gone." The officer leaned down and looked closely at Ralph. "Two? Killed?" Ralph nodded again. Behind him, the whole island was shud-

dering with flame. The officer knew, as a rule, when people were telling the truth. He whistled softly.

Other boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small savages. One of them came close to the officer and looked up.

"I'm, I'm But there was no more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought

in his head for an incantation that had faded clean away. The officer turned back to Ralph. "We'll take you off. How many of you are there?" Ralph shook his head. The officer looked past him to the group

of painted boys. "Who's boss here?" "I am," said Ralph loudly. A little boy who wore the remains of an extraordinary black cap

on his red hair and who carried the remains of a pair of specta- cles at his waist, started forward, then changed his mind and stood still.

"We saw your smoke. And you don't know how many of you there are?"

"No, sir." "I should have thought," said the officer as he visualized the

search before him, "I should have thought that a pack of British boys—you're all British aren't you?—would have been able to put up a better show than that—I mean

Golding/Lord of the Flies 31

"It was like that at first," said Ralph, "before things—" He stopped. "We were together then—" The officer nodded helpfully. "I know. Jolly good show. Like the Coral Island." Ralph looked at him dumbly. For a moment he had a fleeting pic-

ture of the strange glamour that had once invested the beaches. But the island was scorched up like dead wood—Simon was dead—and Jack had. . . . The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up to them now for the first time on the island; great, shud- dering spasms of grief that seemed to wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.

The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.

For Further Reflection

1. What is the main idea about morality that you get out of this selection from Lord of the Flies?

2. Piggy tells Ralph that he is going to Jack to order him to return his glasses. "I don't ask for my glasses back as a favor . . . but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses. . . . You got to." What is Piggy presupposing about the situation and about the significance of morality? What is Jack's response? How does he further respond upon being called a thief? Why is he infu- riated by that charge?

3. Compare Ralph's understanding of morality with Piggy's and Jack's. How do they exhibit different moral positions?

4. What, if anything, is the significance of the conch and how do you interpret its destruction?

On the Nature and Purpose of Morality Reflections on William Golding's Lord of the Flies

LOUIS P. POJMAN

Louis P. Pojman is professor of philosophy at the United States Military Academy and the editor of this volume. In this essay he analyzes Golding's novel in terms of the nature and purpose of morality. He relates it to Hobbes's account in the Leviathan (see the next reading) and identifies the larger purposes of morality.

Which is better—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill? _piggy].

Morality is more honored in the breach than in the observance.

—Thomas Hobbes

Why exactly do we need moral codes? What function do they play in our lives and in society in general? William Golding's classic novel Lord of the Flies (1954), a modem moral allegory, abridged in the previous reading, may provide us with a clue to the answer to these questions.

Golding's allegory is a response to a Victorian British children's classic, The Coral Island (1858), by Robert Ballantyne, in which three teenage boys are shipwrecked on an unidentified Pacific island. Ralph Rover, the fifteen-year-old narrator, Jack Martin, and the creative and wise Peterkin Gay. These boys prove to be ideal Englishmen and live in uninterrupted harmony, a utopia, until they encounter cannibals who capture them. But just when the canni- bals are about to boil them for dinner, missionaries arrive who con-

This essay was written specifically for this volume. Copyright © 2000 Louis P. Pojman. 1William Golding, Lord of the Flies (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1959), p. 222.

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Pojman/On the Nature and Purpose of Morality

33

vert the cannibals and liberate them from heathen darkness and the boys from the dark cauldron. The book was written as a refutation of the prevailing Calvinist and Puritan doctrine of original sin, which holds that human nature is ineluctably perverse. In The Coral Island, human nature is essentially good.

Since then, two traumatic, cataclysmic world wars have disabused us of such Pollyanna-like humanism and the age of innocence. Golding transforms Ralph Rover into Ralph, the commonsensical, decent, and likable leader; Jack Martin into the rapacious and Dionysian Jack Merridew, redheaded rival of Ralph, who demands the position of leadership because he is head choirboy and can sing C-sharp; and creative and wise Peterkin into two persons, Simon, the clairvoyant, mystical epileptic, and Piggy, the asthmatic, myopic philosopher, the conscience of Ralph.

Lord of the Flies is the antithesis of The Coral Island. It portrays the very opposite of the Victorian utopia, a dystopia, a virtual hell. Jack overthrows Ralph as the leader, and with him, humane rules. The unbridled lust for excitement leads to the great orgiastic pig-kills, the sodomizing of a female pig, and finally, at its nadir, to the thirst for human blood. They turn into savages, sadistically hunting, "Kill the beast! Cut its throat! Spill its blood!" In their Dionysian frenzy, Simon is mistaken for the beast and killed. Piggy has his glasses stolen with impunity and is sadistically murdered. Ralph, who resists the depravity to the end, is hunted like a pig and is about to be destroyed when the British navy, seeing the smoke of the burning jungle, comes to the rescue.

What is Golding trying to tell us? He comments on his work:

The theme is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature. The moral is that the shape of a society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual and not only any polit- ical system however apparently logical or respectable. The whole book is symbolic in nature except the rescue in the end where adult life appears, dignified and capable, but in reality enmeshed in the same evil as the symbolic life of the children on the island. The officer, hav- ing interrupted a manhunt [of Ralph], prepares to take the children off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser? 2

20p. cit. E. L. Epstein, "Notes on Lord of the Flies," p. 250-51.

34 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

Civilization's power is weak and vulnerable to atavistic, volcanic passions. The sensitive Simon, the symbol of religious consciousness (as in "Simon Peter," the first disciple of Jesus), who prophesies that Ralph will be saved and is the first to discover and fight against the "ancient, inescapable recognition" of the beast in us, is slaughtered by the group in a wild frenzy. Only Piggy and Ralph, mere observers of the orgiastic homicide, feel vicarious pangs of guilt at this atrocity.

The incarnation of philosophy and culture—poor, fat, nearsighted Piggy, with his broken spectacles and asthma—becomes ever more pathetic as the chaos increases. The nadir of his ridiculous position is reached after the rebels, led by Jack, steal his spectacles in order to harness the sun's rays for starting fires. After Ralph, the emblem of not too bright but morally good civilized leadership, fails to per- suade Jack to return the glasses, Piggy asserts his moral right to them:

You're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see. .. . But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favour. I don't ask you to be a sport ... not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses. . . . You got to. (p. 211)

Piggy might as well have addressed the fire itself, for in this state of anarchy moral discourse is a foreign tongue that only incites the worst elements to greater immorality. Roger, Jack's sadistic lieu- tenant, perched on a cliff above, finally liberated from the con- straints which held back his arm from harming little Henry, responds to moral reasoning by dislodging a huge rock from a cliff that hits Piggy and flings him to his death forty feet below.

The title Lord of the Flies comes from a translation of the Greek Beelzebub, which is a name for the devil. The boys are frightened by shadowy figures which they imagine to be a supernatural beast, but, as the prophetic Simon points out, "Maybe [the beast] is only us." We need no external devil to bring about evil. We have found the devil and, in the words of Pogo, "he is us." Ubiquitous, ever waiting for a moment to strike out, he emerges from the depths of the subconscious whenever there is a conflict of interest or a moment of moral lassi- tude. As E. L. Epstein says, "The tenets of civilization, the moral and social codes, the Ego, the intelligence itself, form only a veneer over this white-hot power, this uncontrollable force, the fury and the mire of human veins.' "3

30p. cit., p. 252.

Pojman/On the Nature and Purpose of Morality

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Beelzebub's ascendancy proceeds through fear, hysteria, vio- lence, and death. A delegation starts out hunting pigs for meat. The hunters quickly find themselves enjoying the excitement, the vio- lence, the bloody destruction of the pig, the symbol of the beast. In order to drown the incipient shame over bloodthirstiness, and take on a persona more compatible with their deed, the children paint themselves with colored mud. Their lusting for the kill takes on all the powerful overtones of an orgiastic sexual ritual, includ- ing ritual, sadistic sodomy, as they lunge the wooden spear up the rectum of the female pig. Liberated from their social selves, they kill without remorse whoever gets in their way. The death of Simon and Piggy (the symbols of the religious and the philosophical, the two great fences blocking the descent to hell) and the final orgias- tic hunt with the "spear sharpened at both ends" signal for Ralph the depths of evil in the human heart.

Ironically, it is the British navy that finally comes to the rescue and saves Ralph (civilization) just when all seems lost. But the sym- bol of the navy is a Janus-faced omen. On the one hand it may symbolize the fact that a military defense is, unfortunately, some- times needed to save civilization from the barbarians (Hilter's Nazis or Jack and Roger's allies), but on the other hand it symbolizes the quest for blood and vengeance latent in contemporary civilization. The children's world is really only a stage lower than the adult world whence they come, and that shallow civilization could very well regress to tooth and claw if it were scratched too sharply. The children were saved by the adults, but who will save the adults, who put so much emphasis in military enterprises and weapons systems—in the euphemistic name of "defense"? To quote Epstein:

The officer, having interrupted a man-hunt, prepares to take the chil- dren off the island in a cruiser which will presently be hunting its enemy in the same implacable way. And who will rescue the adult and his cruiser? 4

The fundamental ambiguity of human existence is seen in every section of the book, poignantly mirroring the human condition. Even Piggy's spectacles, the sole example of modern technology on the island, become a bane for the island as Jack uses them to

40p. cit., p. 251.

36 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

ignite a forest fire that will smoke out their prey, Ralph, and that ends up burning down the entire forest and destroying the island's animal life. The spectacles are a symbol both of our penchant for misusing technology to vitiate the environment and of our ability to create weapons that will lead to global suicide.

Golding is trying to place his finger on a defect of human nature. What exactly is that defect? An older theological term for it is orig- inal sin, a certain tendency to assert one's ego against God and the social good. One need not be a theist with a concept of sin to accept this message: human nature has a tendency to selfishness, to a desperate egotism, which, in appropriate circumstances, is all too willing to harm others unjustly. Cut off from the sanctions of adult civilization, these preteens lack the resources to sustain the institutions that would mitigate the damage of unbridled egoism.

Ask yourself, What could make the difference between the dystopia of Lord of the Flies and the utopia of Coral Island. Could you rewrite Golding's book in order to achieve an opposite ending? I had a conversation with a Bucknell University philosophy student, Coleen Zoller, who said that she thinks Lord of the Flies is a very male book, illustrating the worst kind of male behavior. "Women would typically act differently. They would stress cooperation and caring for one another. The process would be quite different." Do you think this is true? Can you imagine different young people acting better?

WHY DO WE NEED MORALITY?: HOBBES'S ACCOUNT

Why do we need morality? What is its nature and purpose? What does it do for us that no other social arrangement does? There are many philosophical replies to these questions, but a classic reply, one relevant to the situation of Lord of the Flies, is that given by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in his book Leviathan (1651). Hobbes believed that human beings always act out of perceived self-interest, that is, they invariably seek gratifica- tion and avoid harm. His argument goes like this:

Nature has made us basically equal in physical and mental abil- ities, so that while one person may be somewhat stronger or have a higher IQ than another, each has the ability to harm, even kill,

Pojman/On the Nature and Purpose of Morality

37

the other, if not alone, then in confederacy with others. Further- more, we all want to attain our goals, including sufficient food, shelter, security, power, wealth, and other scarce resources. These two facts, equality of ability to harm and desire to attain our goals, lead to an unstable state.

From this equality of ability arises equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two people desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, which is principally their own preser- vation and sometimes their enjoyment only, endeavor to destroy, or subdue one another. And from hence it comes to pass, that where an invader hath no more to fear, than another man's single power; if one plant, sow, build, or possess a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with forces united, to dis- possess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his labor, but also of his life or liberty. And the invader again is in the like danger of another. 5

Given this state of insecurity, people have reason to fear one another. Hobbes calls this a "state of nature," one in which there are no common ways of life, no laws or moral rules which are enforced, no justice or injustice, for these concepts lack applica- tion. There are no reliable expectations about other people's behav- ior—except that they will follow their own inclinations and per- ceived interests, tending to be arbitrary, violent, and capricious.

Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a com- mon power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war, as is for every man, against every man. For war consists not in battle only or in the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend in battle is suffi- ciently known: and therefore the notion of time, is to be considered in the nature of war; as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lies not in the shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together; so the nature of war consists not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no disposition to the contrary.

5Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), chapter 13.

38 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

The consequence of the state of nature, this war of all against all, is described thusly:

In such a condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no cultivating of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the comfortable buildings; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowl- edge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no liter- ature; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and dan- ger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.

But this state of nature, or more exactly, state of anarchy and chaos, is in no one's interest. We can all do better if we compromise, give up some of our natural liberty—to do as we please—so that we will all be more likely to get what we want: security, happiness, power, prosperity, and peace. So rational egoists that we are, accord- ing to Hobbes, we exchange some of our liberty for a social contract or covenant, wherein a ruler and rules are set over us, which we are to obey, since they are enforced by a mighty ruler, the State, the Leviathan. Only within this contract does morality arise and do jus- tice, and injustice come into being. Where there is no enforceable law, there is neither right nor wrong, justice nor injustice.

So morality is a form of social control. We all opt for an enforce- able set of rules which if almost all of us obey almost all of the time almost all will be better off almost all of the time. A select few, con- ceivably, might be better off in the state of nature, but the vast ma- jority will be better off in a situation of security and mutual coop- eration. It may turn out that some people cheat, renege on their contract, but so long as the adherence is widespread by most of us most of the time, we will all flourish.

Hobbes didn't claim that a pure state of nature ever existed or that humanity ever really formally entered into such a contract, though he notes that among nations such a state actually exists, so that a "cold war" keeps us all in fear. Rather, Hobbes is offering an explanation of the function of morality. He is answering the question, Why do we need morality. Why? Because without it exis- tence would be an unbearable hell in which life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

Pojman/On the Nature and Purpose of Morality

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THE PURPOSES OF MORALITY

What is the role of morality in human existence? What are little boys and girls and big men and women made of that requires eth- ical consciousness? Ralph answers these questions at the end of Lord of the Flies.

And in the middle of [the children], with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the dark- ness of man's heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy. (p. 248)

In this wise modern moral allegory, we catch a glimpse of some of the purposes of morality. Rules formed over the ages and inter- nalized within us hold us back and hopefully defeat the "Lord of the Flies" in society, whether he be inherent in us individually or an emergent property of corporate existence. The moral code restrains even the sadistic Rogers of society from evil until unto- ward social conditions open up the sluice gates of sadism and ran- dom violence. Morality is the force that enables Piggy and Ralph to maintain a modicum of order within their dwindling society, first motivating them to compromise with Jack and then keeping things in a wider perspective.

In Golding's allegory, morality is "honored more in the breach than in the observance," for we see the consequences of not having rules and principles and virtuous character. As Piggy says, "Which is bet- ter—to have rules and agree, or to hunt and kill [each other]?" Moral- ity consists of a set of rules which if followed by nearly everyone will promote the flourishing of nearly everyone. These rules restrict our freedom but only in order to promote greater freedom and well-being. More specifically morality seems to have these five purposes:

1. To keep society from falling apart. 2. To ameliorate human suffering. 3. To promote human flourishing. 4. To resolve conflicts of interest in just and orderly ways. 5. To assign praise and blame, reward the good and punish

the guilty.

Let us elaborate these purposes. Imagine what society would be if everyone or nearly everyone did whatever he or she pleased,

40 What Is the Purpose of Morality?

disregarding basic moral rules. I would make a promise to you to help you with your philosophy homework tomorrow if you fix my car today. You believe me. So you fix my car, but you are deeply angry when I laugh at you on the morrow when I drive away to the beach instead of helping you with your homework. Or you loan me money but I run off with it. Or I lie to you or harm you when it is in my interest or even kill you when I feel the urge.

In such a society parents would abandon or abuse their children and spouses betray each other whenever it was convenient. The very notion of a spouse would be meaningless, since it connotes commitment, loyalty, fidelity, all of which are moral notions. No one would have an incentive to cooperate or help anyone else because reciprocity (a moral principle) would not be recognized. Great suffering would go largely unameliorated and, certainly, peo- ple would not be very happy. We would not flourish or reach our highest potential. Under such circumstances society would break down. Even thieves must adhere to moral rules with each other, if they have any hope of robbing others.

I recently visited the former USSR countries Kazakhstan and Rus- sia, which are undergoing a difficult transition from communism to democracy (which hopefully will be resolved favorably). In this tran- sition, with the state's power considerably withdrawn, crime is on the increase and distrust is prevalent. At night I had to navigate my way up the staircases in our apartment building in complete dark- ness. I inquired as to why there were no light bulbs in the stairwells, only to be told that the residents stole them, believing that if they did not take them, their neighbors would. Without a dominant author- ity, the former Communist authorities, the social contract has eroded and everyone must struggle alone in the darkness.

We need moral rules to guide our actions in ways that light up our paths and prevent and reduce suffering, that enhance human (and animal, for that matter) well-being, that allow us to resolve our conflicts of interests according to recognizably fair rules, and to assign responsibility for actions, so that we can praise and blame, reward and punish people according to how their actions reflect moral principles.

Even though these five purposes are related, they are not iden- tical, and different moral theories emphasize different purposes and in different ways. Utilitarianism stresses human flourishing and the amelioration of suffering, whereas contractual systems rooted in ra-

Hobbes/On the State of Nature 41

tional self-interest accent the role of resolving conflicts of interest. A complete moral theory would include a place for each of these purposes. Such a system has the goal of internalizing the rules that promote these principles in each moral person's life, producing the virtuous person, someone who is "a jewel that shines in [morality's] own light," to paraphrase Kant. It is fair to say that morality is a necessary condition for happiness. Whether it is also a sufficient condition for happiness is more controversial, a question we shall consider in Part III. The goal of morality is to create happy and vir- tuous people, the kind that create flourishing communities. That's why it is the most important subject on earth.

For Further Reflection

1. What, according to Pojman, is the main message of Lord of the Flies? Do you agree? Explain.

2. How does Pojman relate Golding's novel to Hobbes's account of morality?

3. Discuss Pojman's five purposes of morality. Do you agree moral- ity has all of these purposes? If not, explain. Can you think of other purposes it has?

On the State of Nature