'The Lord of the Rings and Philosophy'

[Aiwendil]

Mister Underhill wrote:

The quote you reference does not refer to “punishment” per se – unless the punishment is a miserable internal life. Certainly there are numerous examples of people who have reaped all the material, outward “rewards” of their immorality, but do they have fulfilling relationships, clear consciences, peace of mind?

and

virtue is its own reward; immorality leads only to unhappiness, no matter how much riches or fame may be obtained thereby.

I disagree. A view like this rests upon the claim that all immoral people are unhappy; in fact, in order for it to be the basis of any kind of moral philosophy, it would need the claim that all people are unhappy to the degree that they are immoral.

You are right in pointing out the distinction between external signs of happiness and one's internal state of mind. But do you really think that all immoral people are secretly miserable? There's no pressing reason to think that this is so. Such claims have always struck me as unsupportable tautologies that people use to convince themselves to be moral.

But even supposing that this turns out to be true for every human that has acted immorally, it runs into problems. For it is certainly possible to imagine a hypothetical person that lacks a conscience and that genuinely, thoroughly enjoys being immoral. If morality is simply based on happiness, we have no justification for telling this person to be moral.

Maybe it's true that sometimes or even often, immorality leads to unhappiness. But this does not mean that happiness and morality are inextricably bound together.