Santa and Universal Morality

Marc Hauser’s Moral Minds has been among my reading materials over the holiday period. In Moral Minds, Hauser postulates a universal grammar underlying all human moral decision making.

The moral dimension of decision making ended up pervading my holidays, with a perhaps only nominally healthy degree of worrying over the whys of many otherwise pedestrian considerations. I upset my nine-year-old as we drove by the Shaklee building in Pleasanton, California by asking whether he thought that the bombing of the building by animal rights extremists was at all justified given that some animals might have been harmed in the testing of health products. I was very surprised at how emotional the topic became for him—to the point that he was teary-eyed—and how quickly we had to discontinue discussion. For him, the idea of a moral tradeoff between harming animals and saving people was just so affective that he couldn’t go on with the discussion, demonstrating Hauser’s thesis that the universal moral grammar operates at a level that is not rational at its core.

A related concern arose in a commentary I made to the local paper: should we lie to children? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins argue absolutely no, and for the most part my wife and I have done very well with our own variation on this position. We dropped the ball a few years back, though, because of suburban parental expectations and the fear that our son would be castigated by his friends (as much if not more than he already has been by those who assert Hell is in his future!). What we did was to vaguely allow the Santa Claus myth to continue. The results two years back were perhaps predictable and, to this day, he reminds us that we cruelly deceived him and made him look like a fool. Never again.

So, when the inevitable “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” reprint came to the local paper, I made a disguised contribution:

Dear Virginia,

There are many things that The New York Sun is wrong about. We print retractions with some regularity because we are flawed but dedicated to trying to get things right as best we can. It is therefore with a heavy heart that I must point out that our previous letter to you from 1897 neglected some very important facts. And, because we consider it immoral to lie to children, we want to be as clear as we can in this retraction.

Virginia, we want you to understand that Santa Claus is a great idea and that a long time ago there really was someone named St. Nicholas and other people named Kris Kringle. In recent years, in our country, many celebrate Christmas and think of Santa Claus as a bringer of toys and good cheer to all of us. He represents a beautiful idea in his magical sleigh giving gifts to children and adults alike.

But, Virginia, we would be wrong to tell you Santa Claus really exists and lives at the North Pole while little elves build toys. We can’t tell you that because it isn’t true. Santa Claus is no more real than Odin, God, Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Kali, Quetzalcoatl, ghosts, demons, devils, imps, djinns, leprechauns, or any of the many supernatural creatures that people have thought up down through the ages. There is simply no evidence for any of them.

Virginia, we want you to believe that we have your best interests at heart, and therefore we can’t lie to you about these things. Opinions differ about many of these ideas. Some people think that if we deceive you it helps you have a more interesting childhood. Some people think there are many gods swirling around in space. Some believe that forests are filled with wood spirits inhabiting the trees. But all evidence points to quite the opposite of all of these ideas.

Still, giving gifts of cheer, celebrating our lives together, and being kind to one another are all beautiful and very human ideas. We won’t lie to you, Virginia, but we do want you to be kind and enjoy the holidays. Be of good cheer, and the spirit of Santa Claus will always be with you.

Sincerely,

The New Editorial Staff
New York Sun

But this is an example of a basic moral revulsion (do not lie to children) interfering with social and rational ideas. In any case, my son at least approves.