The Rules of the Game

Why understanding uncertainty isn't a path to moral relativism

Often, when I talk about the problem of certainty, someone raises the understandable concern that I’m advocating for moral relativism. As I understand it, the worry is, if we can’t be sure of anything, then we can’t say this is right and that is wrong. And, if we can’t do that, we can no longer condemn odious or heinous acts.

But understanding the problem of certainty actually has no implications for our ability to distinguish or label right or wrong.

To illustrate my point, let’s divide the world into two parts. (Feel free to insert here any joke about how the world is full of two kinds of people: those who divide things into two parts and those who don’t.)

Part 1.

The physical world. This includes things we can experience with our five senses—that we can see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. This world can also, by extension, be one that we learn about because someone we trust has seen, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted something and then told us about it.

Example: I see a book laying on the table. I pick it up. I feel its thin pages and its hard cover. I smell its mustiness and I read its words.

(I’m ignoring here the other ways we have of knowing things, like intuition. After all, few people instinctively think of those as certain in the first place.)

Part 2.

The abstract world. While there are multiple types of abstract worlds, the world of morals is one subcategory. The world of mathematics is another (more on that in a minute). The moral subcategory is where we our values come in to play. It’s where we label things right, wrong, good, evil, or somewhere in between.

Example: I see someone stealing, and I condemn their action. Because stealing is wrong.

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Most people, to the extent they choose to think about these things at all, move through the world assuming that the physical world is certain. And they assume that the moral world is squishy and ambiguous. Without ever realizing that this is backwards.

Let’s start with the easy part.

The physical world

When it comes to the physical world, the observation that nothing is certain is not new. It’s why, in my correspondence with the physicist Carlo Rovelli, he wrote, “Between certainty and chaos, there’s a huge space, that’s where humans need to conduct their business.” It’s why, going back to the mathematics example, this observation is also consistent with the famous Einstein quote that, “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

It is, of course, the case that, in many situations, the probability that we’re wrong is so infinitesimally small that it’s practically negligible. When I pick up that musty book and touch its pages, it’s possible I’m dreaming or hallucinating. Maybe I’m in the matrix. Or I’m pretty sure that if I drop a thin-stemmed wine glass on a tile floor, it’ll shatter. Although maybe it lands in such a way that it doesn’t.

I can recognize that those probabilities are not zero and also see them as so close to zero that I feel comfortable ignoring them and going about my day—and not dropping glasses on the floor to test it. Perhaps that’s a mistake. But it’s one I’m ok living with.

The abstract world

Abstract worlds, for their part, are subject to rules in a way that the physical world is not. And in an abstract world where we make those rules, we can define our way into something that looks a lot like certainty.

Think, for a moment, about the game of Monopoly. If two people are playing and both agree to play by the rules, can each be certain of what will happen if one lands on Park Place when the other owns it? Specifically, can the owner be certain that the other player will hand over 35 Monopoly dollars? If you understand that to be certain, then much like a game, the moral world can also produce certainty.

However, what might happen if two Monopoly players are playing by different rules? Or if one player is learning the game and the other hands her an instruction manual that is hopelessly smudged or in a language she doesn’t understand?

Like a Monopoly game, if we’re to play together, the moral world only makes sense if the rules are defined. After all, defining the rules lets us all know when they’re broken. What’s more, in order for the rules to make sense, we need to be clear about the goals. What might happen if one Monopoly player is playing to win, while the other is simply trying to be invited to play again?

The reason we can easily and without hesitation condemn horrific acts—take slavery, for instance—is that the rules being broken are obvious to just about everyone and are disputed by pretty much no one. As in: Human lives have equal moral value. And no human being should enslave another.

Other issues, of course, tend to be more challenging.

There are two main ways we run into trouble regarding rules that guide the moral world. One is that we assume everyone knows them. Another is that we use words to explain the rules that don’t make sense to others. Another still is that our sense that the rules are self-evident prevents us from realizing they’re quietly governing our actions and judgments.

The world of right and wrong is ultimately ours to define. Perhaps you think those rules come from God. Well, not everyone has the same, or any, religion. Or perhaps you think they come from a commitment to maximizing human flourishing. Have you defined what human flourishing means? Have you clarified what happens if the flourishing of one group conflicts with the flourishing of another?

If you’re unsure how this works in the social and political realm, consider the following example. What, for instance, are the rules when someone says, “Asking someone where they’re from is racist”? Or “Denying gender-affirming care to trans kids is transphobic or anti-trans”? Consider a rule that’s, in principle, clear, but that not everyone agrees with. Like “kneeling during the national anthem is wrong.”

The challenge isn’t that we can’t say this is good or this is bad. It’s that our conviction keeps us from explaining how we got to those decisions, which then keeps us from letting that thinking be questioned.

Clarity matters when it comes to explaining to others how to play the game. It matters because it can shine a light on places where our rules are not aligned with our goals or even where they conflict. Consider two goals that most universities face: promoting free speech and not offending students. Is there a set of rules that can optimize for both?

Another reason clarity about rules and goals matters is that either or both could change. If our goals change, the rules might need to change. If our rules change, then we might need to modify our goals. The reason to stay open—to not let certainty shut things down, even in the moral realm—is that you never know when someone might show you a better way to achieve your goal or point out a cost you didn’t see.

This is a long way around to saying that there’s nothing about uncertainty that means we can’t declare one thing right and another thing wrong or one policy better than another. As long as we are committed to being clear and precise about our rules and goals and we’re willing to have them questioned, we do not have to let them go.