Are moral values measurable and definitive?

May 28, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Way back in 2015, in a debate with one time columnist with this newspaper, Stella Ramsaroop, (“What is moral judgement?” Sunday, November 6, 2005) I told her setting out moral criteria by which humans should live is virtually impossible though it should not be.
Stella was adamant that moral principles dictated Sheila Holder, Khemraj Ramjattan and Raphael Trotman resign their parliamentary seats from the WPA, PPP and PNC respectively. She argued because they have each left their party to form an organization of their own (the AFC), the morally right thing to do was to give up the seat.
I did not disagree with her but since I knew how ubiquitous double standards and convenient moral rules are in Guyana, I wanted to be provocative and quote some of the great names in philosophy to prove to her that defining moral values in a Sisyphean task.
I quoted from Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Jeremy Bentham. People in this country since colonial times have asked that Guyanese live by rules that suit their convenient purposes and not philosophically grounded ethics.
I remember meeting this lady in Oasis Café who would occasionally come up to me and offer a few words of praise for my activism. After the 2015 election results, she became a board member of the Chronicle. During that time, she penned a letter in the newspapers and she referred to the Chronicle as a venerated newspaper.
When a staff member of the Office of the President was criticized for referring to Indians as “Coolie” people, she published a chastising letter. But to date, her silence of the Hinds/Lewis/Chronicle imbroglio (to put it very mildly) is still to be broken.
I am sure this woman felt she had a moral reason for condemning the OP staffer for the “Coolie” remark but no such reason exists for castigating the Chronicle for what it has done. This is what is called moral values.
It is utterly ridiculous to criticize the lady’s moral preferences but it does raise the thorny problem of what are moral values. I have a recorded interview with Sherod Duncan over the way he voted on the Chronicle’s announcement to discontinue columns by David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis.
Duncan told me that the perspective he took at the meeting was to assert the right of the Cditor-in-Chief to make the decision. He went on to add that the Editor’s authority was his consideration not the moral or political content of the act which was not the issue before the Chronicle Board meeting.
I disagreed with Duncan telling him an act cannot be divorced from its essential meaning and contextual implications. But quite politely, Duncan said these words to me, “I hear your wisdom,” but he stuck with his position that he was right to protect the authority of the Editor-in-Chief.
So who was right in that dialogue between Duncan and me? Days after that exchange with Duncan, I got a call from another Board member, Troy Edmonson. He wanted to speak to me on an article I did on the Hinds/Lewis imbroglio in which I cited the walk-out by then Board member, Bert Wilkinson.
Edmonson’s fundamental objection to the article was how I treated Wilkinson’s behaviour at the meeting. He felt I did not attach any importance to it. For Edmonson, Wilkinson’s outburst was unacceptable and he thought I did not give Wilkinson the chastisement he deserved.
I bluntly told Edmonson I was not in the least interested in what Wilkinson did and said since in my scheme of values what the Editor-in-Chief did was far more harmful to the core values that hold freedoms intact.
I remember telling him, the rage of Wilkinson was a mundane matter you find in life all the time. Edmonson asserted his disagreement. Here boldly in front of my eyes was the different values of human beings.
I get the distinct impression that Edmonson saw what Wilkinson did as far more offensive that the decision of the Chronicle’s Editor-in-Chief to drop the columns of David Hinds and Lincoln Lewis.
As the conversation wore on, Edmonson did say to me that though he respected the way I felt about what the Editor’s action, for him, Wilkinson’s loud words, banging on the table and his walk out constituted an abuse.
I held the opposite view. So is Edmonson right and am I wrong? This is where the weight one puts on human actions comes in. If you study the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, you would be able to conclude if I am or Edmonson is right.

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