We live in an age where the reigning presumption is that morality is based on how strongly one feels about a given issue at a given time and that simply feeling a certain way makes one a good person. Emotionalism drives modern ethical discourse. Goodness depends not on reality, but on our own subjective feelings. Since emotions are fleeting, unreliable, and often wrong, so is any approach to morality based on them. And since the degree to which we find enduring meaning in life is directly related to how well and faithfully we serve what is truly good, we find little of that kind of meaning in feelings-based morality.
Consider the outrage against the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in September 2021. The world watched in horror as women were again subjugated to treatment that violated their dignity as human beings. Citizens of Western countries voiced their opposition on social media. Then some months passed and few seemed to care anymore.
We see something similar playing out now with Ukraine. At the start of the conflict, pro-Ukrainian sentiment swept the Western world as social media users changed their profile pictures to blue-and-yellow flags. But even now interest in the conflict is waning.
But there are some for whom Afghanistan and Ukraine are not dead issues. These are people who continue to provide real aid to real Afghans and Ukrainians. Their commitment is not based on popular sentiment or even their own feelings. They see the value in taking action on behalf of those who can’t help themselves, regardless of how many Twitter followers they pick up along the way. They don’t just signal their support and then move on to the next popular issue. They don’t stop at registering their feelings on social media. They act. They give of their time, energy, and resources, often at considerable risk to their personal safety. Their goodness is tangible, not rhetorical.
Those who serve the Good, rather than just talk about what feels good, do so by improving the lives of individual people, flesh-and-blood human beings. Such actions are necessarily particular, even though they align with a universal moral law. The principle may be general, but the good being done is for a specific person or people.
For example, one may post, write, and talk about how terrible the sexual exploitation of children is and how someone should do something about it. This is simply to acknowledge an objective universal moral truth, which is good as far as it goes but it doesn’t really help anyone.
But if that same person gives his time, energy, or resources to an organization like Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.) he does real good for real children in harm’s way. Since 2013, O.U.R. has taken tangible action to rescue thousands of survivors from sexual exploitation by working with host-nation governments, providing aftercare for survivors, and equipping law enforcement agencies with the tools to effectively address the problem. They don’t just talk about what feels morally superior. They do real good for real people, one child at a time.
John Witherspoon explains that “to make the good of the whole our immediate principle of action, is putting ourselves in God's place, and actually superseding the necessity and use of the particular principles of duty which he hath impressed upon the conscience” (pg. 29). To set out to save the world is to affect nothing because none of us are capable of it. Such an approach leads to inaction and wasted breath.
But to do real good for real people as we are able, to take seriously our particular duties, and to prioritize specific actions over general statements of support is to truly serve the Good. This approach leads not to just a brief emotional high, but a deep sense of the enduring meaningfulness of our actions.