Now we come to the interesting part . . .

An especially fascinating conclusion arising from scientific studies of the innate and unconscious human moral system is that it is implicitly much more sophisticated and clever than philosophers tend necessarily to allow.

Research would seem to show that humans are programmed to judge the greater good in terms more varied than simply the good of the greatest number.  There are circumstances where equations drawn up in terms of the interests of the greatest number will instinctively hold sway.  But equally there are situations where this will not be the case—where more complicated and mysterious algorithms seem to come into play.

To put it simply, the research would seem to show that there is an innate resistance within us as human beings to the deliberate exploitation of other individuals to further our own—implicitly selfish—ends.  This of course doesn’t mean that we don’t do it; but rather that there is a certain frisson, expressed perhaps in terms of conscience, that we need overcome first.  And not just for selfish ends either, but for any end, no matter how praiseworthy.

At the same time, there seems to be what must be a logically related element within us that is prepared to allow a moral acceptance of collateral damage arising in pursuit of a legitimate cause.

The best way to describe this is in terms of a war, in which the forces with the demonstrable right on their side lay siege to an enemy city.  Should the city fall, it will bring nearer the end of the war.  It is also inevitable that in the course of the shelling several hundred people are likely to be killed.  An alternative plan is to parade a dozen prisoners before the city walls with the intention of killing them unless the enemy surrenders.

Now it would seem, in the first case, to be scientifically expected that the response from any random sample of individuals surveyed would be a majority vote—over ninety percent—in favour of the moral legitimacy of such an outcome.  In the second case, and by much the same margin, however, the answer was most likely, and equally instinctively, to be no.

Now the outline I am presenting here is not directly culled from the scientific data.  It is, rather, my interpretation of that data, and of the conclusions that seem to me to be implicitly contained in it.  At the same time, the process of arriving at it has provoked some interesting associations.

The first concerns the verse in John’s Gospel, where Caiphas, the High Priest, speaks of Jesus: You know nothing: nor do you understand that it is for your advantage for one man to die, for the sake of the people, and not to have the whole nation destroyed.  Reading this, it is hard not to believe that John, or whoever wrote John’s Gospel, had not some clear knowledge and appreciation of a moral prohibition against deliberately using or sacrificing individuals, for even seemingly worthwhile ends, highlighting the fact by means of this negative example.

There is also, of course, the statement of Benjamin Franklin’s, which has its origin as far back as at least mediaeval times, that ‘it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer . . .’

The second thing is that the existence of such a principle, which outlaws the misuse of individuals, even in pursuit of what seem positive ends, means that all one really has to sacrifice is oneself, and might go some way to some way to finally resolving a problem from early Christian times, when there were seemingly various ‘lost’ gospels claiming, no matter how ridiculously, that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross, that it was instead Judas or Simon of Cyrene or someone else.

If such an inbuilt moral principle, as has been described, for protection of the innocent individual exists, and existed at the time of Jesus, then quite clearly it had to be Jesus who died on the cross.

This mailing has strayed into places it wasn’t intended to go on setting out.  But I write purely as an observer, someone for a long time fascinated by the various matters discussed.  As I say, my interest is purely neutral and prompted mainly by curiosity.