The Cosmic Justice Hypothesis:

This is a common hypothesis best expressed by MLK Jr.: “The Arc of the Moral Universe is long, but it bends toward Justice”.  The other day I ran into a post by someone claiming that Covid-19 was God’s punishment for abortion and homosexual marriage.  Really?  We should examine what the Cosmic Justice Hypothesis really says and why we ought to believe it.  ‘In the fullness of time, the sins of individuals and their heroic deeds will be punished or rewarded.’   Most people of religious faith believe this and perhaps rightly so.  Life would be rather meaningless if virtue was not rewarded, or moral error eventually punished.  But questions remain…  Why for instance would the Universe eventually punish wrongdoing? Why on earth would virtue, if it can be had, be rewarded, especially if that virtue is not exercised in action.  Is it virtuous to condemn one’s fellow being because of a moral mistake, or should one make every attempt to mitigate the consequences of said mistake.  I make mistakes and my life is full of errors, does that entail that in the end I will be punished, rather severely because of the sheer volume of errors, I might add.  I think not and hope not.  After all I know my Moral failings, they are mine, I own them, no one else can be judged for them.  I often say to people who are anxious to point out my faults, that they have no right to point them out, because they don’t own them, I do, they are mine and I guard them quite closely. 

Our common inclination is to believe that Justice is Fairness.  We think this from little on.  We want to be treated fairly, and in some cases we fail to treat our fellows with fairness, perhaps many.  We are selfish about fairness, we want it for ourselves whether or not our fellows, human or otherwise, get it, or even deserve it.   That’s a problem isn’t it?  We want, that is desire that people be fair with us, but care less if that fairness extends to everyone.  Perhaps this Covid-19 will teach us lessons we ought to learn, that we are all in the same boat and if we desire to be treated fairly, then we are required to also be fair. Simply put, what goes around comes around. We all believe in some form or other that our errors are mitigated by circumstances, and that fairness requires that we be judged by others with those mitigating circumstances in mind.  But suppose those mitigating circumstances are unknown and not on full display, can we expect to be judged by those mitigating circumstances.  Let me propose that all errors have mitigating circumstances, and some actually mitigate, but others are mere concoctions of our own making to lessen the burden of the guilt we feel. There is a strong sense in which Justice requires mercy.  We can make things fair in a John Rawls sense, but leave those who are handicapped physically or morally in the dust, so to speak.  There is a sense in which those who are handicapped should receive a larger portion of fairness, if there is such a thing.  In order to make things even or fair we need to make sure as best we can that access to fairness is obtainable, like for instance access to a building for those who are wheelchair bound.

Since we are all on the same boat in a remote part of the universe sailing through the cosmos together, it seems most appropriate to let go of our selfish egoism and adopt a more altruist outlook.  After all a virus doesn’t care or even know what you believe, or whether you are rich, or poor, enterprising or lazy, religious or not, virtuous or immoral, strong or weak, handicapped or not, old or young, it just wants to have someone to host it, and a place to temporarily reside. That’s right it will reside only temporarily in someone, and then move on.  We would do good to remember that; and that if we are careful the virus will run its course and we will be free of it.  That is of little consolation to those who have it, but the moral thing to do is to prevent its spread as best we can, so that eventually it dies out within the population. In other words, we ought to adopt an altruistic stance against the invisible enemy, and set our selfish egoist tendencies aside for once.   Ayn Rand’s ideas will not work here.  Perhaps the answer to the earlier question is; that moral failings are eventually punished in order to teach a lesson, a lesson the Universe is most willing to teach.